Local Government Credibility And Its Influencing Factors

Local government credibility provide us a way to observe the effect of local governance. Local government credibility also provide us a way to observe the relationship between local government and society. Nowadays, local government credibility is becoming lower and lower which reflecting the poor governance. But how to improve the governance performance? What is the rational path to enhance the credibility of local government? In order to solve these problems, first of all we should confirm what determine the credibility of the local government, namely the determinants of the credibility of local government is what? In this regard, the academic communities have given three theoretical explanations. These three theories constitute the current academic of local government credibility research on the basic pattern. The first kind of theory can be called the theory of the government’s public trust in the Democratic orientation. The government’s public trust is focused on the input of the political system, and it is believed that government can obtain the trust and support from citizens based on the democratic political system. The second theory is that "institutional justice theory" which propose by Swedish political scientist Rothstein, he believes that compared to the democratic political system, the justice of the government system and government policy is more important for government credibility. The third theory always use for who research on the political legitimacy of China or the government’s credibility is often mention in theirs papers. This theory is government credibility theory of governance performance which named by Ma Deyong. Zhao Dingxin will be the representative of this view of the credibility theory. This theory hold the viewpoint that whether the Chinese government gain the legitimacy and authority or not, it is closely related with the governance level of government and governance performance. The government will win public support through development economy and improve public services and social welfare.Scholars combed the credibility theory of the local government into three main theories, but they did not verify the appropriateness of these three theories. They didn’t verify whether these three theories applicability to China’s local governments or not. How much power can these theroies explain the credibility of the local government in China? Which is the key influencing factor among these three factors(the level of system democracy, the level of system and policy justice and Governance performance) of local government credibility? Are there any other applicable theory in this field? All these problems need the empirical answer. Based on these problems, we have carried out a questionnaire survey in Guangzhou. We investigate by a large scale of the questionnaire survey. This study show that the level of system democracy, the level of system and policy justice and Governance performance have a significant impact on the local government credibility. The role of the local government is expected and the relationship between local government and local citizen are also have a significant impact on the local government credibility. Thus, the controversy of these three theories have been positive validation.