Abstract
This paper studies the impacts of food safety risk perception on the different dimensions of governmental trust. A logistic regression model was constructed based on the multidimensional analysis of government trust (i.e., competence, benevolence and honesty) with food safety risk perception, economic growth, combating corruption, social trust, political participation and demographic characteristics as explanatory variables. The main findings are that respondents with low levels of food risk perception, high political participation and a positive evaluation of economic growth and anti-corruption performance show high levels of trust in government competence, benevolence and honesty. Social trust has a spillover effect, which has a significant impact on government competence and benevolence but has no significant impact on the honesty of the government, which reflects the distinction between different dimensions of the public’s trust in their government. Highly educated people have low levels of trust in government competence, high levels of trust in government benevolence, and no significant impact on the judgment of government honesty. In general, the public speak lowly of the status of food safety and have limited interest in political participation. The government is better to strengthen food safety supervision and develop social capital to further enhance the public’s governmental trust.
Highlights
China is in a period of rapid economic growth, but some food producers’ nonstandardization operations and simplistic pursuit of high revenue have caused some food safety incidents
In Model 2, which contains control variables of demographics, the regression coefficient of food safety status assessment is 0.137, which indicates that people with a lower food-risk perception have a higher level of trust in government competence
Food safety risk research assumes that H1a, H1b and H1c are verified
Summary
China is in a period of rapid economic growth, but some food producers’ nonstandardization operations and simplistic pursuit of high revenue have caused some food safety incidents. The occurrence of food safety incidents in various countries has caused great damage to people’s physical and mental health. Frequent exposure to food safety incidents has evoked the suspicion of the regulatory capacity of local governments and sometimes seriously damaged governmental trust. Food safety has a significant influence on governmental trust. With high risk and informationasymmetry attributes, foods are not able to be judged by consumers for either authenticity or quality [2]; the supervision of food safety by the government is required. As an important part of the government’s regulatory responsibilities, food safety and reliability are important manifestations of the management capabilities of the government. In the past, when food safety incidents occurred, people generally attribute to government’s insufficient supervision and neglect of duty.
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