Does Refusal Bias Influence the Measurement of Chinese Political Trust?

Neil Munro

doi:10.1080/10670564.2018.1410981

Abstract

Measurements of Chinese political trust may be inaccurate due to ‘refusal bias’, resulting from unwillingness of people with certain attitudes to take part in surveys. Such bias is especially problematic because researchers usually have little or no information about refusers. Nevertheless, techniques have been developed which allow correction of refusal bias by extrapolating from reluctant or difficult respondents on the basis of various measures of response propensity. Using data from a nationwide survey conducted in China in the winter of 2012/13, this article shows that this type of correction procedure improves the accuracy of measurement of the Communist Party membership rate, and produces significantly lower estimates of trust in the central government/Party leadership, trust in local government and support for the current system of government. Refusal bias is likely to result from the social desirability of expressing political trust and support under authoritarian conditions.

Highlights

To address the criticism that China’s reported levels of political trust, especially trust in the central government, are ‘too good to be true’,1 a number of quantitative studies have been carried out
We can conclude that the VRPE method is likely to improve the accuracy of measurement for this outcome variable
This article has shown that refusal bias is a serious and non-ignorable problem for the measurement of political trust and system support in China

Summary

Introduction

Tianjian Shi looked at the correlations of political caution with political trust, and found a relatively low correlation.. Tianjian Shi looked at the correlations of political caution with political trust, and found a relatively low correlation.2 In another study he showed that political caution had smaller correlations, in absolute value terms, with don’t know and no reply responses to trust questions than education and interest in politics.. Xuchuan Lei and Jie Lu conducted experiments using local surveys in Chengdu where the interviewers variously identified themselves as conducting academic or government surveys and wore or did not wear a CCP badge.. Xuchuan Lei and Jie Lu conducted experiments using local surveys in Chengdu where the interviewers variously identified themselves as conducting academic or government surveys and wore or did not wear a CCP badge.4 They included a measure of political caution. The Moral Foundations of Trust (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002), p. 226. 2Tianjian Shi, ‘Cultural values and political trust: a comparison of the People’s Republic of China and Taiwan’, Comparative Politics

Results

Discussion

Conclusion