转型期中国县级政府的客观治理绩效与政治信任——从“经济增长合法性”到“公共产品合法性”

Governance Performance and Political Trust in Transitional China:From “Economic Growth Legitimacy” to “Public Goods Legitimacy”

善治是中国政府的执政要务,政治信任反映着公民对政府治理的认可和支持。文章利用2008年中国公民意识调查及政府统计数据,实证分析了政府治理绩效的主观和客观维度对政治信任的影响。研究发现,公民对政府在经济增长、民生福利、纯公共产品领域治理绩效的回顾性和前瞻性积极评价都正相关于政治信任;纯公共产品提供的主观评价对政治信任的影响大于经济增长和民生福利。县级政府的客观治理绩效对政治信任有重要影响,在高人均福利支出、低基尼系数和低失业率的县级单位,政治信任更高,而人均GDP反而微弱地负作用于政治信任。因此,尽管经济增长仍然是政治信任的重要来源,但民生福利和纯公共产品正赶上并超越经济增长,成为公民提供政治信任的新源泉。

Recently, pursuing good governance has become an indispensable choice for the Chinese Government. As the tie between citizens and government, political trnst is not only regarded as an indicator of political legitimacy, but also treated as a scarce resource to enhance governance performance. Based on the data from a 2008 national civic awareness survey, this paper tries to explore quantitatively the complex relationship between governance performance and political trust in transitional China, especially the effects of economic growth, social welfare and pure public goods on political trust. A multilevel model shows that there is a significant association between positive retrospective and prospective assessments of governance and high political trust ; retrospective assessments have more explanatory power than prospective ones; subjective assessments of pure public goods, but not economic growth, has the strongest influence on political trust. Objective pertormance also has a significant effect on political trust： the higher the per capita welfare expenditure, the lower the Gini coeffficient and unemployment rate at county level, the higher the average political trust at county level; however, high per capita GDP does not foster pohtical trust, but undermines political trust. We conclude that though economic development is still one of the roots for political trust, social welfare and the supply of pure public goods are replacing economic development as new sources of political trust.