Chinese Journal of Sociology

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Routes for Civic Engagement in Market Society: RelationlismEspoused Trust or Generalized Trust

 Chen Fuping，Department of Sociology and Social Work，Xiamen University.   

  1. Chen Fuping，Department of Sociology and Social Work，Xiamen University.
  • Online:2012-03-20 Published:2012-03-20
  • Contact: Chen Fuping，Department of Sociology and Social Work，Xiamen University. E-mail: chenfuping1224@163.com
  • About author:Author: Chen Fuping，Department of Sociology and Social Work，Xiamen University.
  • Supported by:

    The Paper was Supported by the Construction Planed Project of Shanghai Municipal Education CommissionE Institute, the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities（2010221011）, the MOE Project of Youth Fund of Humanities and Social Sciences（11YJC840004）， and the Fujian Province Planned Project of Youth Fund of Humanities and Social Sciences（2011C041）.

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Abstract:

In most studies, market economy and civic engagement are often considered helpful to the building of generalized trust, while “Guanxi” hinders trust formation. In contemporary China, when the development of the market economy is promoting the utilization of “Guanxi” and social participation is still expanding along relational routes, can such social participation produce generalized trust? With the CGSS2005 data, I used the structural equation modeling and multilevel linear modeling to analyze how multilevel interactions of market economy, civic engagement, and relationismespoused trust impacted generalized trust. The core variables were operationalized as follows: Market economy was measured by the provincial marketization index and civic engagement was measured by the residents’ participation frequencies in sports and exercising, cultural entertainment, social outings and education, and charity events. Relationismespoused trust included three types: kinshipbased trust, proximitybased trust (e.g., trust for neighborhood), and peoplebased trust (e.g., trust for fellow students, colleagues, and friends). The analysis yielded the following results: (1) relationismespoused trust, with kinshipbased trust as its core, had negative effects on generalized trust; (2) when members of an organization based their trust onrelationism, civic engagement had negative effects on generalized trust; and (3) the development of market economy improved generalized trust, but at the same time promoted utilization of “Guanxi,” thus resulting in bidirectional, opposing effects of market economy on generalized trust in contemporary China. Therefore, economy development must facilitate civic engagement, and civic engagement must not only focus on increasing organizational connections but also pay attention to institutional support for the interactions among nonGuanxirelated members.

Key words: civic engagement , generalized trust , market society , relationlismespoused trust