差序政府信任的微观生态结构和衍生逻辑:构型研究的视角

The Micro-Ecological Structure of Hierarchical Governmental Trust and its Derivative Logic:A Configurational Approach

差序政府信任是基于中国本土政治经验提出的一个重要学术概念。此概念虽在中国研究领域引发了诸多讨论,但其理论内涵并未在国际比较政治学界得到应有的关注。为有效拓展此学术概念在比较政治研究中的意涵和价值,应将构型研究的视角引入对差序政府信任的相关考察,应以民众对中央和地方政府信任的构型差异为关键切入点来识别和测量差序政府信任,应把地方政府治理行为和绩效的差异作为核心解释变量纳入理解差序政府信任衍生机制的理论框架,应基于信任和不信任在心理和认知上的系统差异来对差序政府信任的行为后果进行有效的理论解释和系统的经验考察。

Hierarchical governmental trust is a key academic concept that has been developed on and tested with China’s original political practice.Despite a growing number of studies on hierarchical governmental trust in China’s research field,there has been limited discussions on this concept and its theoretical connotations in the international mainstream literature of comparative politics(mainly due to some critical but unclarified theoretical and methodological issues).A thorough review of existing scholarship on hierarchical governmental trust,with a particular emphasis on clarifying some concerning crucial theoretical and methodological issues,should be of great value for furthering the understanding of this critical political attitude of the Chinese people,enriching the understanding of a key micro-logic of China’s political practice,and enhancing the scholarly-added value of this theoretical concept.After reviewing most prominent theoretical and empirical researches on hierarchical governmental trust over the past decades,a configurational approach to examine its ecological structure,origins,and consequences has been forcefully argued for.It has been further emphasized that:(1)configurational differences are key to examining the ecological structure of hierarchical governmental trust;(2)regional differences are central to scrutinizing the origins and the evolution of hierarchical governmental trust;and(3)the differences between trust and distrust are crucial to analyzing the behavioral consequences of hierarchical governmental trust.Using multiple waves of national surveys between the early 2000 s and 2020 and related census data,the validity,salience,and the significance of the proposed configurational approach,and the aforementioned arguments have been illustrated.