The Influence Of Government Quality On Our Citizens’ Political Trust

Political trust is an important fusion agent between the government and citizens,and it can provide effective political legitimacy support for the stability of the existing regime when the country is facing a major crisis.Under the background that promoting the modernization of national governance system and governance capacity has become the overall goal of deepening reform,it is of great significance to enhance citizens’ political trust.From the perspective of global political practice,the general decline of citizens’ political trust has become one of the common political diseases faced by the United States and other western developed countries.By contrast,according to the 2022 Edelman Trust Barometer,Chinese people’s political trust ranks among the highest in the world.What factors have shaped such high political trust among the Chinese people? This study focuses on the quality of government and attempts to explore the relationship between the quality of government and the political trust of Chinese citizens from the dimensions of economic governance effectiveness,political support and democratic quality.The Survey data used in this study are from The Asian Barometer Survey(ABS),the fourth wave of transnational survey and research program initiated by researchers in Taiwan region of China and jointly participated by scholars from other countries and regions in Asia.A total of 4068 samples from China’s mainland were collected in this survey,and3187 valid samples were selected for this study.The survey was based on GIS/GPS spatial sampling(auxiliary area sampling),stratified and probability-size proportional(PPS)sampling,and interviews were conducted in combination with the Kirsch grid method,thus ensuring the representability of the samples.Through the analysis of the statistical results of 3187 citizens in China’s mainland,the following findings are obtained: first,the political trust level of Chinese citizens is generally high,and their trust in the military is the highest;Second,the central-local "differential trust pattern" does exist;Third,the level of quality of government is generally higher,especially the level of economic governance efficiency,political support is higher;Fourthly,the three dimensions of government quality have a significant positive impact on the political trust of Chinese citizens,among which the political support has the most significant impact.Based on the above findings,this study further explores the following questions: first,why the political trust of Chinese citizens presents a "differential pattern";Second,why political support has the greatest impact on our citizens’ political trust;Third,why does the quality of democracy have no significant impact on our citizens’ high-level political trust? On the basis of empirical research and theoretical reflection,this paper further puts forward several policy enlightenments to improve our citizens’ political trust: first,further improve the quality of local government by enhancing local responsibility awareness and service level;Second,further improve the effectiveness of economic governance and political support by further deepening reform and improving citizens’ living standards;Third,we should further improve the quality of democracy by strengthening socialist democracy.