| During the social transition period, social system had undergone profound reform, social structure has faced deep changes, in depth adjustment had taken place against the interest pattern and the ideology had undergone tremendous changes,too. Various kinds of interest, concepts and forces were confronted with continuous riction and collision, some contradictions in depth began to emerge, unstable factors in the society were on the increase. Contradictions in rural society in particular, farmers’ interest needs could not be satisfied timely, and mass disturbance against basic-level government organization occurred from time to time. The frequent occurrence of mass disturbance had not only reflected the conflicts between each interest and force, but also indicated that farmers’ distrust in government, especially the basic-level government had deepened day by day. However, Chinese society was at the stage of reform and development in the meantime, various kinds of reforms and development of economic society were inseparable from the stability of rural society and politics. "As long as the region and county are well governed, the country is in peace". To enhance farmers’ trust in local and basic-level government will be beneficial to the improvement of the governance environment for the basic-level government. More importantly, to promote the performance in rural governance, will facilitate a harmonious and stable rural society and lay a solid foundation for state long-term stability.Based on the above background and reasons, this paper, by combining methods of quantitative and qualitative research, has conducted questionnaire survey and in-depth interview against some villagers of over 20 villages respectively from Gui county, Tai county of Jiangxi province, the general conclusion drawn is: farmers’ trust in politics has something to do with individual variable; and farmers’ trust in politics varies in degree from different groups and religious organizations; social tradition and trust psychology have significant impact upon farmers’ trust in politics, whose psychological characteristics of trust are respectively representative of "network of relationships" and "hierarchical structure"; farmers’ trust in politics is featured by "personification", that is, farmers’ "personified" trust in government organization refers to their trust in government officials. Difference in farmers’ trust in various levels of government reflects a hierarchical structure characterized by "progressiveness".The paper can be divided into three parts: introduction, body, conclusion and prospect.Among which the body includes six chapters, discussing the issue from six aspects such as the definition and type of trust, the group features of farmers’ trust in politics, hierarchical difference, histological differentiation, mechanism and logics as well as reconstruction route.The introduction has covered the reason, value, current research, research sample, methodology, chapter structure and the main content of the research.Chapter one has given a definition of trust and trust in politics first, pointing out that trust in politics refers to mental state and attitude of the individual citizen or group towards the political doers, government, political party, political institution and system, generally exclusive of government’s trust in citizens. On this basis, the paper has discussed the hierarchy standard and foundation of farmers’ trust in politics in terms of social stratification, governmental hierarchy, population distribution and histological differentiation.Chapter two has analysed the group features of farmers’ trust in politics, pointing out that political trust of rural elites and the masses is greatly different. In other words, rural elites of higher social status have more trust in government, while ordinary masses of lower social status have less trust; for the high-level government, basic-level government and the party in power, greater trust shown in rural male than in female, indicating that the positive correlation between "ordinary trust" and farmers’ trust in politics; for the party in power and high-level government, the difference of trust from mobile farmers and ordinary farmers is not distinct. However, for the basic-level government and ordinary officials, mobile farmers’ trust in them is apparently low.Chapter three has analysed the hierarchical features of farmers’ trust in politics, which has formed an obvious "progressive" hierarchical structure, indicative of farmers’ highest trust in central government, followed by provincial government, County (municipal) government, town government. Because the power over the "network of relationships" between ordinary farmers and government officials, and government officials themselves has taken shape, most farmers would prefer to have trust in the government distant from their residence rather than in their nearby government. And this causes most farmers who appeal to the higher authorities for help to resort to "appealing to the higher authorities for help by passing the immediate leadership".Chapter four has made an analysis of the histological differentiation occurred in farmers’ trust in politics, considering that the different trust from big family and small family is mainly reflected in farmers’ trust in basic-level government, for high-level government, there is no distinct difference; a Buddhist has more trust in central government than a Christian, and as the degression of governmental levels, difference between the two is more conspicuous. However, there is no big difference between the non-religious farmers and the Buddhist; specification, guidance, tolerance and support should be provided for Christianity and its disciples in order to enhance their political understanding.Chapter five sums up and reveals the basic features, institutional environment, mental structure and social foundation of farmers’ trust in politics. It considers that farmers’ trust in politics is diversified and uniform, moral and rational as well as personified and systematic. They have much more trust in those officials and the representative government organizations who have closer relationship with them. Farmers’ trust in government organizations is featured by "progressive" hierarchical structure, which means, farmers usually have more faith in the government distant from their residence than in their nearby government; high-level government has successfully established a good political image by taking the advantage of its ruling power over finance and information resources. Thereby setting off an ugly political image of the basic-level government, and finally leading to hierarchical difference of farmers’ trust in government. The trust of farmer to government officials is influenced by the social trust status, this trust is individual, special but not universal trust, thus is unable to become a structural, stable political trust. In contrast, the system or the rule with the advantages of stableness and ration can turn to be a structural trust. In the key period of social transformation, the trust structure which is featured with "personification"transforms urgently to the one which is featured with " institutionalized ".Chapter six has pointed out the route for reconstructing farmers’ trust in politics. This paper has discussed the route for reconstructing farmers’ trust in politics from the following three dimensionality: the people’s livelihood, civil liberties and democracy. In other words, basic public service system should be built up with the people’s livelihood as the core, in order to enhance farmers’ political understanding; further standardize government’s exercise of authority, firmly establish the authority of legal system and institutions so as to ensure fairness and justice of the society; vigorously promote consultative democracy, encourage and support farmers’ participation in public governance, thereby promote government’s ability to win public trust. |
