Asian Barometer Survey Research Articles

Understanding the Dynamics of Institutional Trust in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand

ABSTRACT This study sought to understand the dynamics of institutional trust in three Southeast Asian countries: Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand. For this, the study used the latest wave of ‘The Asian Barometer Survey’ (2014–2016). Based on the analysis of the survey data from the Asian Barometer, this study found that along with perceived performance and governance quality, values and norms such as authoritarian cultural orientation (ACO) also affected the institutional trust of these countries. People with higher ACO had greater obedience that could affect the evaluation processes of those people and make them more positive or at least less critical, and accordingly create higher institutional trust. This finding may generate an important lesson that institutional trust may not just reflect rational calculation of institutional performance and governance quality, it may originate from other sources such as values and norms like ACO.

Authoritarian values and institutional trust: Theoretical considerations and evidence from the Philippines

Studies on authoritarian values, which have mostly focused on authoritarian regimes and on democracies with spells of authoritarianism, suggest trust in public institutions. However, limited empirical evidence has been carried out in the Philippines where cycles of regime change and authoritarian leadership have characterized its post-authoritarian landscape. Examining multiple public opinion data from the Asian Barometer Survey, this study found that regardless of the political leadership across different regimes, Filipino citizens expressed attitudinal dispositions, i.e. conforming, anti-political pluralism, and support for strong leaders, that constitute authoritarian political values. But instead of a destabilizing effect, estimates from ordinary least squares indicate that Filipino citizens’ authoritarian tendencies enhance institutional trust—seen as an indicator of support for the political system. The findings of this study empirically challenge the view of democratization in the Philippines by foregrounding its ‘populist-authoritarian’ dimension. In addition, they provide evidence of a growing scholarship in comparative political studies that claims that courting confidence for political institutions and regime support does not necessitate a ‘liberal-democratic’ model.

Understanding economic and cultural underpinnings of anti-immigrant attitudes: multilevel evidence from the Asian Barometer Survey Wave IV (2014–2016)

AbstractA large body of research exists concerning determinants of public opinion on immigration and immigrants, primarily based on Western countries. Given that South–South migratory flows have increased dramatically in recent decades, we contribute to the literature by analyzing cross-national probability data in the Asian context. Using multilevel modeling, we derive and test economic and cultural hypotheses concerning natives’ support for restrictive immigration policy. Results show that at the individual level, along with xenophobic tendency, personal financial insecurity, unequal material distribution in society, and sociotropic economic concern all significantly predict the outcome. As a theoretical contribution, contextual effects are also reported: living in a subnational region with more national pride and with higher parochialism is positively associated with it.

Government’s Economic Performance Fosters Trust in Government in China: Assessing the Moderating Effect of Respect for Authority

The high level of trust in government in China has been attributed to the Chinese government’s success in economic development. However, the increased public demand in China in recent years has made the public less likely to focus on the government’s economic performance, which inspired us to explore the correlation between government’s economic performance and trust in government. Based on the Asian Barometer Survey, this study examines the relationship between the government’s economic performance and trust in government in China. The findings suggest that good economic performance by the government was positively associated with a high level of trust in government. High respect for authority was not only positively associated with trust in government but also weakened the relationship between the government’s economic performance and trust in government. This study provides evidence that although the conventional concept of respect for authority may positively predict trust in government, it will weaken the effects of good economic performance by the government on trust in government. The results provide reference for governments in contexts similar to that in China seeking to improve their reputations.

Decentralisation and government trust in South Korea: Distinguishing local government trust from national government trust

AbstractThis article examines how people's confidence in their governments changed in the context of South Korean decentralisation. South Korea provides a unique case to answer the question because it is one of the world's most rapid modernisers and has maintained autonomous local systems across three decades of decentralisation. Analysing data from the first and fourth wave of the Asian Barometer Survey in a seemingly unrelated regression (SUR) model, we find that the trust function of the local governments correlates with the trust function of the national government in 2003 and then disappears in 2015. We understand this finding as a piece of indirect evidence that South Korean local autonomy encourages local government trust, which does not reflect merely trust in the national government. This article also discusses the need for normalisation of the National Assembly, the creation of regional political parties and the dispersion of presidential power.

"Competing Views of Economic Growth vs. Environmental Protection in Developing Countries: The Case of Indonesia "

This research examines the preference structure for economic growth vs. environmental protection among Indonesians. For this purpose, we employed data from the fourth wave of the Asian Barometer Survey. In contrast to the conventional wisdom, we found that Indonesians prefer environmental protection to economic growth. We further identified that religiosity, ethnicity, and rural development are associated with the individual survey respondent’s preference pattern.

Democratic deconsolidation in East Asia: exploring system realignments in Japan, Korea, and Taiwan

ABSTRACT This study explores how and why the citizenries of Japan, Korea, and Taiwan engage in deconsolidating the liberal democratic system in which they live. For this exploration, the study conceptualizes democratic deconsolidation as a two-phase psychological movement and analyses it as the realignment of system affiliation. The analysis of the Asian Barometer Survey recently conducted in these countries reveals that pluralities of their citizenries are psychologically disposed to realign themselves with a hybrid or autocratic system. It also reveals that democratic learning and socioeconomic modernization, two significant influences on democratic consolidation, do little to keep East Asians from joining in the deconsolidation movement. These findings suggest that the deconsolidation of democracy not be equated with a reversal of its consolidation.

Electoral integrity matters: how electoral process conditions the relationship between political losing and political trust

This contribution adds a new perspective to the debate on electoral integrity by asking how electoral integrity affects the way in which election results translate into citizen attitudes towards the political system. It introduces a causal mechanism that links political losing to political trust via evaluations of electoral fairness: citizens who voted for the losing camp are more likely to view the electoral process as unfair than citizens who voted for the winning camp, resulting in political distrust. It further suggests that the effects of political losing on political trust depend on the level of electoral integrity. In conditions where the elections were conducted in a free and fair manner, even those who voted for the losing camp have little reason to suspect foul play and therefore political losing should barely affect perceptions of the electoral process. Whenever there are actual indications of electoral malpractice, however, political losers have much more reason to doubt the integrity of the electoral process than those who are content with the outcome of the election. The contribution makes use of a unique dataset that ex-post harmonizes survey data from three cross-national survey projects (Asian Barometer Survey, European Social Survey, Latinobarómetro) and macro-level data from the Varieties-of-Democracy Project to cover 45 democracies in Europe, East Asia, and Latin America. Using multi-level modeling, it finds that political losing indeed decreases political trust indirectly via perceptions of electoral fairness. Confirming its key proposition, the empirical analysis shows that political losing has a weaker effect on political trust in countries where electoral integrity is high.

Business is Business: How Does Trade Relationship Fail to Boost Image of China?

ABSTRACT This study explores how China’s increased economic influence shapes its image among foreign audiences. Specifically, it examines the effect of trade relationship with China on the perception of China. A systematic analysis of the data from recent three waves of the Asia Barometer Survey (ABS) consistently shows that, at the country-level, trade exposure to China is associated with a less favorable public view of China. At the individual level, the authors find that trade exposure weakens the positive relationship between individuals’ assessment of the domestic economic situation and their perception of China. Meanwhile, political factors such as individuals’ political orientation and regime difference correlate with a negative image of China, and trade relationship cannot mitigate this “soft power deficit.” In short, trade relationship does not help promote a positive image of China.

Intergenerational mobility and preference for redistribution: evidence from East Asia

ABSTRACT Conventional wisdom posits that intergenerational social mobility reduces individual preference for redistribution. Yet, this thesis is drawn from the case of democracies, where electoral competition plays a key role in redistribution. In this study, we argue that intergenerational social mobility’s effect on individual preference for redistribution differs in dictatorships, where the state is the key decision-maker of redistribution. With the data of the fourth wave of the Asian Barometer Survey, we find that citizens’ upward intergenerational social mobility increases with their support for government-led redistribution in autocracies. This finding contributes to the understanding of individual preference for redistribution in dictatorships.

Public Feelings toward ASEAN

What determines how ASEAN is perceived by the citizens of its member states? Most studies on ASEAN take a state-centric and elite-oriented viewpoint. We improve on this by bringing the people of ASEAN into the center of the analysis. Considering lessons from the European Union’s internal legitimacy crisis, we develop hypotheses on how skill-based economic interests, sociocultural beliefs, and assessments of national context shape people’s attitude to ASEAN. Our hypotheses are tested using the latest data from the Asian Barometer Survey, covering eight of the 10 ASEAN countries. We find that citizen confidence in domestic governance and a positive assessment of major extra-regional powers are associated with a closer identification with ASEAN. Our analysis also identifies age and gender cleavages. ASEAN affinity is higher among older rather than younger and male rather than female respondents. Our findings have important policy implications for the proponents of ASEAN.

Leisure satisfaction and happiness: the moderating role of religion

ABSTRACT This study examines the effect of leisure satisfaction on happiness and explores how religion, as a moderator, influences this effect in the Asian context. The statistical analyses were conducted using the Asia Barometer Survey 2006 and 2007 databases. The regression analysis results indicate that: (a) leisure satisfaction is positively associated with happiness in the investigated Asian countries; (b) all the religions tested are significantly positively associated with happiness except Buddhism (Theravada); and (c) religions negatively moderate the relationship between leisure satisfaction and happiness. The study serves as a new exploration to test the association between leisure satisfaction and happiness in the Asian context, and raises the importance of a more comprehensive examination of contextual differences in related research. Implications of the study are analysed and limitations and future directions are provided.

Gender gaps in political participation in Asia

Recent scholarship shows that the gender gap in political activity has diminished, particularly in Western societies. Still unknown is how gender matters for political participation in Asia. Using the 2010 Asian Barometer Survey, this article analyzes the gender gap in multiple forms of political participation in 13 countries. It also investigates how individual-level characteristics mediate the differences in men’s and women’s political participation. The article shows that Asian men and women overwhelmingly vote at an equal rate in elections, but gender gaps persist in other types of political action. This study shows that gender remains the strongest predictor of political participation and suggests that Asian women remain marginalized in the political arena. The results have important implications for how to progress gender equality in the region.

Why is welfare provision unpopular in China?

ABSTRACT This article analyses from a cultural perspective why, despite exacerbating income inequality, Chinese people are not in favour of income equality. I argue that the patriotic education campaign initiated in the 1990s encouraged citizens to sacrifice for the greater good of China and caused the Chinese to accept and adapt to a decrease in governmental welfare as well as lessening the demand for it, thus reducing the government’s financial burden of welfare provision. I then test the hypothesis against the Asian Barometer Survey data. The statistical results support my assertion, suggesting that strong patriotic beliefs reduce the preference for social equality, and that private income and economic perspectives do not significantly stimulate the public demand for redistributive policies in China.

Asset indexes and the measurement of poverty, inequality and welfare in Southeast Asia

Using data on household consumer durables from the Asian Barometer Survey, this paper examines the evolution of inequality, poverty and welfare in six countries of South East Asia: Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. We start by deriving the most common order of acquisition of these durables, using first an algorithm proposed by Paroush (1965), and then Item Response Theory. We also compute the frequency distribution of the number of durables owned by households. We then use these results to compute inequality, poverty and achievement or welfare indices adapted to the case of ordinal variables.Our empirical results confirm the existence of an order of acquisition. The results show that inequality was higher in Cambodia, Indonesia and the Philippines and lower in Vietnam, Thailand and Malaysia. A similar classification of countries was obtained when computing multidimensional poverty indices.Finally, using the welfare or achievement index recently introduced by Apouey et al. (2019), we found that welfare was generally higher in Vietnam, Thailand and Malaysia and lower in Cambodia, Indonesia and the Philippines.

Education, Internet Use, and Confidence in the Police: Testing the “Informed Citizen” Thesis in the Philippines

We applied the “informed citizen” thesis to public confidence in the police in the Philippines—a topic that has surprisingly received little research attention. We analyzed four waves of survey data from the Asian Barometer Survey (ABS), and we applied propensity score matching (PSM) method and regression models to the data. We operationalized education, interest in politics, and Internet usage as indicators of an informed citizen. We tested whether they are predictive of confidence in the police. Confidence in the Philippine police has gradually improved from 2002 to 2014. Regression analysis found that citizens with more education and more Internet usage displayed lower levels of confidence in the Philippine police. We also found that an interaction effect between education and political interests, with education having a stronger connection to confidence in the police among those with greater political interests. Our findings support the informed citizen thesis and shed new light on the study of confidence in the Philippine police.

Trust in police as an influencing factor on trust in government: 2SLS analysis using perception of safety

PurposeCitizen trust in police is important in terms of citizen consent to government policies and of police achieving their organizational goals. In the previous study, improvements in police policy, organizational operation and policing activities were developed to clarify which factors influence trust in police and how trust can be improved. This research raises the question, would changes in trust in police have an impact on trust in government? In this paper, this research question is discussed theoretically and the causal relationship analyzed empirically by applying OLS, ordered logistic, 2SLS and logistic regressions.Design/methodology/approachThe basic analysis methods are to apply the OLS and the ordered logistic regression. OLS regression analysis is an analytical method that minimizes an error range of a regression line. The assumptions for OLS are: linearity, independence, equilibrium, extrapolation and multicollinearity issues. These problems were statistically verified and analyzed, in order to confirm the robustness of the analysis results by comparing the results of the ordered logistic regression because of the sequence characteristic of the dependent variable. The data to be used in this study is the Asia Barometer Survey in 2013.FindingsTrust in police and citizen perception of safety are analyzed as important factors to increase trust in the government. The effects of trust in police are more significant than the effects of control variables, and the direction and strength of the results are stable. The effect of trust in police on trust in government is strengthened by the perception of safety (IV). In addition, OLS, ordered logistic regression analysis, which analyzed trust in central government and local government, and logistic regression analysis categorized by trust and distrust show the stability.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper has implications in terms of theoretical and empirical analysis of the relationship between trust in police and trust in government. In addition, the impact of perception of safety on trust in police can be provided to police officers, policymakers and governors who are seeking to increase trust in government. This paper is also meaningful in that it is the microscopic research based on the citizens' survey. One of the limitations of macroscopic research is that it does not consider the individual perceptions of citizens.Practical implicationsThe results of this paper can confirm the relationship of the virtuous cycle, which is perception of safety – trust in police – trust in government. The police will need to provide security services to improve citizens' perception of safety and make great efforts to create safer communities and society. Trust in police formed through this process can be an important component of trust in government. By making citizens feel safer and achieving trust in police, ultimately, trust in government will be improved.Originality/valueThe police perform one of the essential roles of government and are one of the major components of trust in government, but the police sector has been neglected compared to the roles of the economic and political sectors. These influences of macro factors are too abstract to allow specific policy directions to be suggested. If we consider trust in police, and factors that can improve trust in government, we can suggest practical policy alternatives.

The Lingering Effects of Losing and Nonvoting on Institutional Trust: An Analysis of South Korea

To what extent do supporters of electoral losers and nonvoters maintain lower evaluations of institutions post-election? A sizable literature identifies a divergence in perceptions among winners and losers regarding democratic satisfaction, with few studies extending this to perceptions of other electoral and nonelectoral institutions nor to include nonvoters. The timing of the 2015 Asian Barometer survey in South Korea allows us to identify evaluation prior to Park Geun-Hye’s impeachment scandal. Analysis consistently finds that those who supported the losing presidential candidate in 2012 maintained lower evaluations of institutions, with inconsistent results regarding nonvoters.

China's Influence in Asia: How Do Individual Perceptions Matter?

Taking pride in the vibrancy and transparency of democracy, countries such as the USA have prioritized the spread of democracy in its foreign policy. The admirable impact that this political agenda has garnered across the globe pushes us to ponder what China would offer as it aspires for a more prominent position on the international stage. Particularly, how would China foster its image in Asia and, as a result, earn a favorable voice and even all-out support from Asian countries, countries economically underdeveloped and politically volatile? This paper sets out to answer this question by critiquing whether or not popular perceptions of China’s political system impact how Asians perceive China’s influence in general. Conducting statistical analysis using the fourth wave of Asian Barometer Survey (2016) to assess the above argument, we find that Asians who lend their support for China are more keen to the economic opportunities that China’s growing economy offers their country than they are of China’s political system. In short, China’s authoritarian regime type does not factor into Asians’ perception of China, except when individuals are highly educated with and committed to democratic principles.

Parental happiness and social policy in Asia

ABSTRACT People in East and South Asia widely believe that having children brings fulfilment to an individual’s life. However, over the past fifty years, modernisation in Asia has been accompanied by a remarkable drop in birth rates to a level even lower than most western countries. Prior research on western nations has shown that the time demands and financial stresses of parenthood, as well as current inflexible employment practices, contribute to the high cost of parenthood and discount the emotional rewards of having children. This study investigates the happiness of parents and childless individuals in East and South Asia, and whether social policies can improve parental happiness. We use individual-level data in 10 Asian countries from the World Values and the Asian Barometer Surveys, and find no country where parents report significantly greater happiness than non-parents after controlling for relevant sociodemographic differences. Multilevel models show that paid annual leave, paid maternity and parental leave, and flexible working schedules as well as a comprehensive policy index help alleviate the disparity in happiness between parents and non-parents across countries, in particular work flexibility, while family-friendly policies have no noticeable negative effects on non-parents’ wellbeing.