Trust In Local Government Research Articles

Growing amidst the COVID-19 pandemic: The interplay among transformational leadership in government, public trust, and posttraumatic growth

Individuals may experience positive changes or gain growths after struggling with traumas or challenging circumstances such as the COVID-19 pandemic. This study aimed to assess potential levels of posttraumatic growth (PTG) of the general public during the COVID-19 pandemic and PTG's associations with perceptions of transformational leadership in local government and public trust. The data of a probability sample of 1011 community-dwelling adults (61.2% females; Mean age = 41.2 years, SD = 15.8) in Macao, China, were collected via a telephone poll survey. Multiple regression analyses were conducted and a bootstrapping approach was utilized to test the hypothesized moderating effects and mediating effects of trust in local government on the association between perceived transformational leadership and PTG, respectively. Results showed that about half of the respondents reported at least a medium level of PTG. Whereas perceived transformational leadership in the Macao local government was positively associated with four individual aspects of PTG (i.e., appreciation of life, new possibilities, personal strength, and relating to others) as well as the overall PTG, while controlling for the demographic variables, trust in the local government showed no moderating or mediating effects in these associations. Our findings suggest the value of governments’ transformational leadership in promoting people's PTG in the face of public crises such as COVID-19. More transformational leadership behaviors, such as attending to citizens’ personal needs and conveying an inspirational vision, in government are called for to bring about greater positive responses from individuals and ensure social vitality and resilience during this long-term public health battle.

Is Trust in Local Government Influenced by the 'Marketplace' of Choice?

Is Trust in Local Government Influenced by the 'Marketplace' of Choice?

Whether to Trust Local Government? : From the Good Governance Perspectives

The public's impression of the overall government structure is greatly influenced by the performance of the local governments. As indicated by Public Complaint Bureau statistics, the operational responsibilities that these local authorities are expected to depict have to some extent fallen short of the public expectations. This could have a negative impact on the public's confidence in their local government. As a result, this study aims to investigate the factors associated to public trust in local government. Purposive sampling was used in this quantitative study, which included 120 Kuantan residents as respondents. As a part of this study, the data was analysed using SPSS 24. Transparency, accountability, and responsiveness were found to be strongly connected with public trust in Kuantan City Council. This study adds to the body of knowledge about the components of good governance and the effect they have on public confidence in local government. It is intended that this study would help the local government in Pahang establish a sound public policy and programme in order to increase the public trust.

Trust in Local Governments: An Insight for Good Governance Practices in COVID-19 Management

Various countries from almost all corners of the world and international organizations involved in providing development assistance have actively implemented and encouraged a paradigm shift in governance and development based on good governance. This study examines public trust in implementing good governance in terms of accountability, responsiveness, transparency, and information technology of the Samarinda City government in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. The research method used in this research is qualitative. Data collection in this study prioritized in-depth interviews with twenty questions posed to six informants from the general public and six from the Samarinda City Government. The data analysis approach in this study uses the Nvivo 12 Plus software, and the processing uses the Crosstab Query Analysis functionality. The results of this study indicate that the practice of accountability, responsiveness, transparency, and information technology of the Samarinda City government varies greatly. In terms of responsibility, very good. Then, information technology in Samarinda City is quite good. Meanwhile, in terms of responsiveness and transparency, it still does not provide maximum results. Public trust in the government in handling COVID-19 has various perspectives based on findings from the implementation of good governance.

Introduction

Introduction

Making the List: Reevaluating Political Trust and Social Desirability in China

We examined sensitive questions on political trust and regime support in China using indirect methods. We replicated previous list experiment results confirming that a majority trusts the central government despite overreports. We also conducted novel list experiments on trust in local government and support for removal of the presidential term limit and found evidence of overreporting for both. The point estimate for local government also suggests majority trust, but the central government is both more trusted and feared. However, we did not find evidence of majority support for removing the term limit at the time of the removal, indicating that the public may negatively evaluate government, albeit indirectly, in some circumstances. Last, examining self-monitoring, a personality trait for examining social desirability, we found that it only influenced overreporting trust in the central government. The results reveal meaningful variation in political trust and regime support in the world’s largest authoritarian society.

Citizen engagement in coproductive community services: examining the influence of community attachment, trust in the local government, and the leadership of local elected officials

ABSTRACT Using survey data from 20,271 residents around the U.S., the present study examines whether community attachment, trust in the local government, and the leadership of local elected officials are associated with citizen engagement in coproduction of community services: volunteering, attending local public meetings, and working with others to make change in the community. The present study found that community attachment plays a critical role in promoting volunteering and working with others to change the community. Furthermore, trust in local government was positively associated with volunteering for a local endeavor. Interestingly, when citizens had high trust in their local governments, the levels of attending local public meetings were decreased. However, the leadership of local elected officials was not predictive of the three coproductive community services. These findings contribute to the literature by describing an important role of community-centered motivation and local government that could enhance citizen engagement in coproducing community services.

The Influence of Local Patriotism on Participation in Local Politics, Civic participation, Trust in Local Government and Collective Action

Patriotism is conceived of as a national-level concept. I posit that people hold similarly strong feelings toward their municipal area. Based on long-standing the- ories of patriotism in national politics, I show how local patriotism influences local politics. Using novel preregistered survey data from an online sample matched to nationally representative data in terms of gender, age, and race, I show that people have feelings of love, indifference, or hate toward their municipality. I also find a strong positive correlation between loving one’s municipality and partici-pation in local politics, civic participation, and trust in local government. I also conducted two preregistered survey experiments that show that priming feelings of love and/or hate towards one’s town strongly motivates the willingness to sac-rifice to solve local collective action problems. Specifically, stimuli that evoked these feelings made participants much more likely to donate the payment they earned from completing the survey to solve a town problem. These results show the crucial importance of local patriotism for understanding local politics.

How and when perceived COVID-19 crisis strength impacts individuals' life satisfaction and sleep quality: A moderated mediation model.

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused millions of deaths, seriously hampering people's lives and their productivity. Drawing on social information processing theory, this research developed a moderated mediation model to investigate the influence of perceived COVID-19 crisis strength on individuals' well-being. The results from a sample of 441 suggest that individuals' perceived COVID-19 crisis strength indirectly affects their life satisfaction and sleep quality via their perceived risk of being infected. Moreover, both individuals' trust in local government and mindfulness trait can buffer the positive effect of perceived COVID-19 crisis strength on their perceived risk of being infected. At the same time, they also buffer the indirect impact of individuals' perceived COVID-19 crisis strength on life satisfaction and sleep quality through perceived risk of being infected. This research provides several practical implications for governments and individuals to mitigate the negative influences of the COVID-19 pandemic and help individuals boost life satisfaction and sleep quality.

Air pollution and political trust in local government: Evidence from China

While it is well-established that air pollution damages health and inhibits productivity, the political cost of air pollution remains poorly understood. We estimate the causal effect of air pollution on political trust in local government in China, which underpins the stability of the authoritarian state. Combining a nationally representative longitudinal survey with satellite derived PM2.5 concentrations, we find that a one μg/m³ exogenous increase in PM2.5 concentrations, due to atmospheric thermal inversion, reduces trust in local government by 4.1 per cent of one standard deviation. This implies that if China were to reduce PM2.5 emissions to the annual standard of 35 μg/m³ mandated by the Chinese government, this would boost trust in local government by 21.2 per cent evaluated at the mean. We examine the underlying transmission channels and find that prolonged exposure to PM2.5 lowers citizens’ life satisfaction and evaluation of local government performance, induces adverse health effects, imposes additional financial burden and, albeit to a lesser extent, reduces household income.

Exploring the effects of traditional media, social media, and foreign media on hierarchical levels of political trust in China

Although there is a consensus that mass media play an important role in the rise and fall of political trust in Western democracies, existing research on media use and political trust in China achieved relatively inconclusive findings. By using two surveys conducted in China in 2013 and 2018, we examine the effects of media use, including traditional media, social media, and foreign media, on Chinese citizens’ trust in their central and local governments. Our research shows that traditional media usage such as watching TV and reading newspapers is positively associated with citizens’ trust in the central government but is not related to their trust in local governments. Social media usage is negatively associated with trust in local governments but not with trust in the central government. Using VPNs to access foreign media is negatively associated with Chinese citizens’ trust in the central government but does not affect their trust in local governments. We explain why different types of media have such contrasting effects on political trust in central versus local Chinese governments and discuss the theoretical and empirical implications of these findings.

How Welfare Policies Can Change Trust – A Social Experiment Assessing the Impact of Social Assistance Policy on Political and Social Trust

Abstract While there is a substantive literature on the link between welfare states and individuals’ trust, little is known about the micro-linkage of the conditionality of welfare as a driver of trust. This study presents a unique randomized social experiment investigating this link. Recipients of the regular Dutch social assistance policy are compared to recipients of two alternative schemes inspired by the basic income and based on a more trusting and unconditional approach, testing the main reciprocity argument in the literature: a trusting government will harvest trust from welfare recipients in return. Particularly trust in local government – the level at which the experiment was implemented – increases among recipients of the alternative treatments. Subsequently, we innovatively theorize and test rigorously which mediating mechanisms might explain this increase. Policy evaluation, social integration, and psychological well-being are studied in this respect. Of these, the only underlying mechanism proven to mediate the treatment effect in local political trust, is citizens’ satisfaction with policy.

A socio-ecological approach to align tree stewardship programs with public health benefits in marginalized neighborhoods in Los Angeles, USA

Extreme heat in the United States is a leading cause of weather-related deaths, disproportionately affecting low-income communities of color who tend to live in substandard housing with limited indoor cooling and fewer trees. Trees in cities have been documented to improve public health in many ways and provide climate regulating ecosystem services via shading, absorbing, and transpiring heat, measurably reducing heat-related illnesses and deaths. Advancing “urban forest equity” by planting trees in marginalized neighborhoods is acknowledged as a climate health equity strategy. But information is lacking about the efficacy of tree planting programs in advancing urban forest equity and public wellbeing. There is a need for frameworks to address the mismatch between policy goals, governance, resources, and community desires on how to green marginalized neighborhoods for public health improvement—especially in water-scarce environments. Prior studies have used environmental management-based approaches to evaluate planting programs, but few have focused on equity and health outcomes. We adapted a theory-based, multi-dimensional socio-ecological systems (SES) framework regularly used in the public health field to evaluate the Tree Ambassador, orPromotor Forestal, program in Los Angeles, US. The program is modeled after the community health worker model—where frontline health workers are trusted community members. It aims to address urban forest equity and wellbeing by training, supporting, and compensating residents to organize their communities. We use focus groups, surveys, and ethnographic methods to develop our SES model of community-based tree stewardship. The model elucidates how interacting dimensions—from individual to society level—drive urban forest equity and related public health outcomes. We then present an alternative framework, adding temporal and spatial factors to these dimensions. Evaluation results and our SES model highlight drivers aiding or hindering program trainees in organizing communities, including access to properties, perceptions about irrigation responsibilities, and lack of trust in local government. We also find that as trainee experience increases, measures including self- and collective efficacy and trust in their neighbors increase. Findings can inform urban forestry policy, planning, and management actions at the government and non-profit levels that aim to increase tree cover and reduce heat exposure in marginalized communities.

Your misfortune is also mine: Land expropriation, property rights insecurity, and household behaviors in rural China

Using a unique nationwide survey of rural China, we examine the effects of property rights insecurity (PRI) created by undercompensated land requisitions (ULRs). To preclude the confounding impact of land losses on the behavior of displaced households, we adopt a novel approach comparing unaffected households in counties with massive ULRs and their counterparts in land-requisitioned counties without widespread ULRs, adjusted by their respective control group households in adjacent non-land-requisitioned counties. The group from counties with widespread ULRs exhibits significantly lower trust in local governments, employs risk-proof strategies to cope with perceived PRI, and experiences a decline in farming efficiency and household welfare.

How Does Social Security Fairness Predict Trust in Government? The Serial Mediation Effects of Social Security Satisfaction and Life Satisfaction.

Several studies have found that trust in government is associated with social fairness, citizens’ satisfaction with public service, and life satisfaction. This study aimed to investigate the serial mediation effects of social security satisfaction and life satisfaction on the association between social security fairness and trust in government. We analyzed the data from the Chinese Social Survey in 2019 (n = 7403) to examine the serial mediation effects. The findings showed that the higher the level of government, the greater the trust it enjoyed from its citizens. The direct prediction of trust by social security fairness was stronger at the county and township levels than at the central government level. Both social security satisfaction and life satisfaction partially mediated the relationship between social security fairness and overall trust in government. Social security fairness indirectly positively predicted trust in local government at the county and township levels through social security satisfaction, life satisfaction, and their serial mediation. While social security fairness could only indirectly predict trust in central government through social security satisfaction, the prediction of trust in central government via life satisfaction (mediator) was not significant. We observed a serial mediation model in which social security fairness positively predicted trust in government directly and indirectly through social security satisfaction and life satisfaction. The finding that social security satisfaction partially mediates the relationship between perceptions of fairness in the social security system and trust in government has implications for improving policies and the functioning of the system at all levels of the government.

Authoritarian Regime Legitimacy and Health Care Provision: Survey Evidence from Contemporary China.

Over the last two decades a growing body of research has shown that authoritarian regimes are trying to increase their legitimacy by providing public goods. But there has so far been very little research on whether or not these regimes are successful. This article analyzes data from a 2012-2013 nationally representative survey in China to examine whether health care provision bolsters the Communist regime's legitimacy. Using multivariate ordinal logistic regression, we test whether having public health insurance and being satisfied with the health care system are associated with separate measures of the People's Republic of China's regime legitimacy: support for "our form of government" (which we call "system support") and political trust. Having public health insurance is positively associated with trust in the Chinese central government. Health care system satisfaction is positively associated with system support and trust in local government. Health care provision may bolster the legitimacy of authoritarian regimes, with the clearest evidence showing that concrete benefits may translate into trust in the central government. Further research is needed to understand the relationship between trends in health care provision and legitimacy over time and in other types of authoritarian regime.

Does process matter more for predicting trust in government? Participation, performance, and process, in local government in Japan

Trust in government and its antecedents and development remain leading policy and research concerns. Drawing on a broadly representative online survey of 3100 respondents in Japan, we examine measures of trust in three local government actors. We find political participation is not associated with trust in local government, contrary to our expectations. Civic participation is associated with trust in the mayor, but not councillors or administrators. Satisfaction with services provided by local government, and positive perceptions of policy process, are associated with trust, with interactions suggesting process is the stronger antecedent. To develop greater trust in local government, it is important that public sector actors exhibit respect for rights and follow procedure, laws, and regulations, as well as deliver positive outcomes. Points for practitioners Building trust in government remains a key concern for policy makers, as it is related to successful adoption of policies. Trust in local government in Japan is related to perceived performance and citizen satisfaction. Civic participation is also related to some forms of trust in government. However, possibly more important are citizen perceptions that policy processes respect rights, procedures, and laws. To increase trust in government, practitioners need to practice, and show that they practice, good processes in developing and delivering policy, and show that policy leads to better perceived outcomes.

The Impact of Government Social Media Information Quality on Public Panic During the Infodemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic triggered the first global “Infodemic” in the era of social media. Understanding how governments deal with the negative impacts of the infodemic (e.g., public panic) has become a priority. This paper uses the theoretical framework of the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) to explore mechanisms for alleviating panic associated with the infodemic. It considers, in particular, the quality of information circulated on Government Social Media (GSM) as the central route and local government trust as the peripheral route. An empirical study was conducted using data from a focus group interview and a questionnaire survey collected within the first three weeks following the citywide lockdown of Wuhan, China. The results show that as: (1) Quality of GSM information does not significantly reduce public panic, but local government trust significantly increases people’s pandemic prevention knowledge; (2) Pandemic prevention knowledge is a critical mediator between information quality of GSM and public panic, as well as local government trust and public panic; and (3) Information quality of GSM significantly increases people’s trust in local governments. This paper contributes to the literature on infodemic and government social media and provides implications for practice.

A scandal effect? Local scandals and political trust

Scandals that hit political institutions and their actors are likely to contribute to lowering political trust. However, few studies examine the accuracy of such relationship at the local level. This article aims to contribute to the field by assessing the impact of local scandals on trust in local government and the mayor in the context of a federal state, Belgium. The research relies on an original dataset that includes a selection of municipalities that were hit by a scandal and of municipalities that were not in the running-up of the 2018 local elections. Our findings suggest the existence of a ‘scandal effect’ on voters’ trust in local government and mayor. First, trust in local institutions appears significantly lower in municipalities that were hit by a scandal. Second, the effect of scandals at the individual level appears to be reinforced by voters’ perception of trustworthiness of local politicians: scandals more significantly affect trust in local government among voters who evaluate negatively local politicians.

GDP manipulation and environmental information disclosure: evidence from China

ABSTRACT We investigate the relation between gross domestic product (GDP) manipulation at the government level and the quality of firms’ environmental information disclosures. Using a sample of Chinese firms, we find that firms in the cities where GDP is manipulated by local leaders are more likely to disclose environmental information by using soft and unverifiable information. We also find that the results are stronger for state-owned companies, for high-polluting firms, and for firms with low-quality internal control. We further find that GDP manipulation is negatively associated with the level of trust in local government, which could potentially explain the relation between GDP manipulation and soft disclosures. This is the first study to investigate the influence of local politicians, who have incentives to inflate GDP growth, on a firm’s disclosure quality.