Neighborhood Effects and Political Trust: A Multi-level Analysis of Chinese Rural-to-Urban Migrants’ Trust in County Government

Massive rural-to-urban migration in China is consequential for political trust: rural-to-urban migrants have been found to hold lower levels of trust in local government than their rural peers who choose to stay in the countryside (mean 4.92 and 6.34 out of 10, respectively, p < 0.001). This article explores why migrants have a certain level of political trust in their county-level government. Using data of rural-to-urban migrants from the China Family Panel Survey, this study performs a hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) to unpack the multi-level explanatory factors of rural-to-urban migrants’ political trust. Findings show that the individual-level socio-economic characteristics and perceptions of government performance (Level-1), the neighborhood-level characteristics-the physical and social status and environment of neighborhoods (Level-2), and the objective macroeconomic performance of county-level government (Level-3), work together to explain migrants’ trust levels. These results suggest that considering the effects of neighborhood-level factors on rural-to-urban migrants’ political trust merits policy and public management attention in rapidly urbanizing countries.

Education, Political Trust, and Perceptions of Distributive Justice - A Survey Study in China

Using data from the General Social Survey of Wuhan,China in 2014,this study designs three paths to analyze the direct and indirect relationships between education and perception of distributive justice of income.The first path explores whether education directly affects people’s perception of distributive justice.The second path connects education to socioeconomic status to determine whether higher status results in a higher perception of distributive justice.The last path introduces political trust as a mediating variable to evaluate the relationship between political trust and justice perception.Results show that education is the significant factor that affects people’s political trust and perception of distributive justice.

The Relationship between Public Service Efficiency of Government and Residential Political Trust in Hong Kong

Hong Kong has a long history with its high efficiency and clean and self-disciplined government.Within the past over 20 years,different social development trend has occurred in Hong Kong.The article observed the relationship between political trust from residence and public service efficiency of government in Hong Kong from 1992 to 2015 and found that the value of public service efficiency has a significant effect on political trust in Hong Kong government,the higher the efficiency of public services,the higher the political trust.The author tried to find the path for the Hong Kong government to improve its public service quality and efficiency after testifying the positive correlation between public service efficiency and residential political trust with empirical analysis.

Does internet use improve the public evaluation of government environmental governance (GEG) in China? An analysis using the Chinese Social Survey, 2013−2017

Based on three datasets of the Chinese Social Survey(CSS)2013,2015,and 2017 and the National Statistical Yearbook,this study examined whether and in what ways using the Internet may or may not affect the public evaluation of government environmental governance(GEG).There are three main findings.First,Internet use has a negative influence on the public evaluation of GEG.Second,there has been an urban-rural difference in terms of Internet use;especially for the rural resident,increasing their use of the Internet significantly lowered their evaluation of GEG.Third,Internet use affects GEG mainly through political trust,whilst it tends to enhance people’s perception of environmental problems;however,it has little influence on their evaluation of GEG.This finding implies that public evaluation of GEG should be viewed as an important inter-subjective dimension of GEG;especially in the Internet era,it has become increasingly necessary for the government to not only continuously improve the quality of governance by dealing with actual/practical environmental issues,but also enhance its ability to react to the public opinions online effectively and appropriately.

Are China and Russia Axis or Partners?

Grounded in an analysis of the unique advantages of China-Russia relations, the paper argues that the two countries have established a high level of political trust and will continue to work in concert on all fronts. It also looks back at how China entered into alliances throughout its history and the lessons it has learned from those experiences. It emphasizes that China does not deem the establishment of exclusive alliances or political blocs as a foreign policy option.