Political Participation, Political Efficacy and Trust for Government

Abstract

A person without trust cannot stand. A country without trust might decline. The rapid development of China's economy and the growing strength of the country cannot be separated from mutual, effective, coordinated and sustainable interaction between the government and the citizens. The achievement can neither be separated from the citizens' trust for the government, nor from the government's improvement of the citizens' political participation and the cultivation of their sense of political efficacy. This paper uses 11,783 pieces of data from the China General Social Survey (2010) to further refine political participation into institutionalised and non-institutionalised participation through factor analysis and regression analysis to explore the effects and mechanisms of influence between institutionalised participation, non-institutionalised participation, political efficacy and trust for government. The results of the analysis show that institutionalised participation has a non-significant positive effect on trust for government, non-institutionalised participation has a significant negative effect on trust for government and political efficacy has a significant positive effect on trust for government. Based on these findings, it is proposed to strengthen the institutionalisation of political participation and improve government performance assessment to further enhance citizens' trust for government.