特大地震与政治信任:一项准实验研究

Mega Earthquake and Public Trust:A Quasi Experiment Design

特大地震是否会削弱公众政治信任?这两者间的因果关系通过何种机制发生作用?既有研究未能深入考察特大地震在应急管理的不同阶段对公众政治信任影响的异质性,尤其是未能将公众生活满意度纳入讨论。论文以2008年汶川大地震为契机,结合公民意识调查两期(2008年和2009年)追踪调查数据,应用双重差分设计考察了汶川大地震对受灾省市公众的因果干预效应。论文发现,地震发生一年后,大地震对公众政治信任的影响效应存在明显的“差序格局”:特大地震总体上对受灾省市公众中央政府信任没有实质性影响。然而,特大地震却会显著削弱他们的县/市政府信任。从因果机制上看,生活满意度是导致受灾省市公众县/市政府信任显著下滑的重要调节变量。这一发现表明了地方政府在应急恢复阶段中要及时调整治理思维,密切关注公众的切身需求。

Can mega earthquake erode public trust?What is the causal mechanism between mega earthquake and public trust?Existing studies have yet not discussed the different impacts of mega earthquake on public trust at different stages in crisis management,especially have ignored the importance of citizens'life satisfaction.Taking the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake as an opportunity,we combined two tracking survey data from ACC(Attitudes towards Citizenship in China)and used DID to discuss the causal effect of Wenchuan earthquake on citizen from affected provinces(cities).We find that one year after Wenchuan earthquake,there is an obvious different pattern of effect from the earthquake,namely,Wenchuan earthquake generally has no causal effect on citizen's central government trust,but it can erode their county/city government trust.For the causal mechanism,we find that citizens'life satisfaction is a significant moderating variable for this relationship.This finding shows the importance for the local government to adjust governance preference and pay close attention to the needs of the affected people at the recovery and reconstruction stage.