A legal study based on geographic methods: spatial and temporal differences and influencing factors in the construction level of China’s law-based government

Abstract The purpose of this paper is to understand the spatial and temporal evolution of the level of rule of law government construction in China and the mechanism of influence, in an attempt to expand the research direction of legal geography, and to provide empirical cases for how developing countries can promote the rule of law construction under unbalanced geographic, economic and institutional conditions. The study investigates the spatiotemporal variations and influencing factors of law-based government construction levels in each of China’s 31 provincial administrative regions from 2015 to 2022, employing the Moran index and geographic detectors. The results show: (1) The construction level of law-based government in each provincial administrative region has exhibited a clear upward trend, shifting from predominantly “low” and “medium-low” levels to predominantly “medium-high” and “high” levels. (2) The construction level of law-based government and its development type exhibit clear spatial aggregation in each region. The spatial distribution of the four categorized types shows continuity and obvious characteristics of agglomeration. (3) The construction of a law-based government is influenced by economic, social, environmental, and political factors. The basic economic system, level of economic development, and resources per capita available to the administration have the greatest impact. The interaction between these factors significantly enhances their influence on the level of law-based government construction. The improvement of the level of rule of law government construction not only depends on the economic foundation and institutional resources, but is also affected by multiple factors such as urbanization development, demographic structure, public service provision, and institutional innovation path.