The Status Of Local Government Credibility And Its Influencing Factors

To win recognition and trust of the public are necessary to the prosperity anddevelopment of a country no matter in what condition.Therefore, the study of thegovernment’s credibility has always been an unchanged topic across the centuries, theconstruction and perfection of government credibility is also the goal of government.Chinese government, especially local government must be matched with times inboth ideas and ability, or it will be confronted with credibility crisis. With thedevelopment of economy, different kinds of problems are emerging, such as varyingdegrees of fog and haze, food safety worrying, and sky-high price of food and house.The images of our government from local to center have been damaged by thosedilemmas, re-examining the reasons and re-constructing the government’s images,realizing positive interaction between the government and the public, creating aharmonious society that everyone longing for is extremely urgent.Through empirical investigations, the study dedicated to make clear the currentsituation of Chinese local government credibility, to find out the main factors thataffect government credibility, to analyze the problems existing in governmentcredibility and find ways to improve the credibility.This article is based on thecurrent situation of China’s local government, after realizing the background,definition and evaluate index of government credibility, a questionnaire was designedwhich compose of local government civil servant, local government public service,legal administration and local democracy-building. After a series of work of issuing,recovering and analyzing, the local government credibility current situation wassorted out, in addition, a interview materials will be used as evidence combined withthe questionnaire which can reflect local government credibility. There are three mainfactors which affect the government credibility: the government itself, the public andthe social environment. In terms of the government, the work style is flirty and freely,corruption and executive lawlessness is common, policy making are subjectively, theimplementation of instability is random, the government failed to provide the publicwith an effective mechanism for expressing the interests and powers relief channels, the government is not transparent and information is private. In terms of the public,the cultural level has been raised compared with before and lead to disappointing withthe gap between reality and government expectations. As to the social environment,the public hold negative attitude towards to political participation and governmentmanagement. On the other hand, the public are vulnerable to kinds of informationwith the development of new media, which brought a huge impact to the governmentcredibility. According to the factors which affect government credibility, the essaydiscusses the path and measures to enhance the credibility of the local government.First, strengthening the corrupt governance, start from the local civil servants toimprove the image of the government. Secondly, implementing the government moreopen, abandoning pressure government, establishing service government; finally,regulating government behavior and strengthening the response to the demand of thepublic.