Chinese Journal of Sociology

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Marketization，Political Values，and Chinese Residents’Trust in Government

  

  1. CHI Shangxin，Department of Sociology and Social Work，Xiamen University
  • Online:2015-03-24 Published:2015-03-24
  • Contact: CHI Shangxin，Department of Sociology and Social Work，Xiamen University E-mail:chishangxin@126.com

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Abstract: The marketization causes not only economic development，but also the change of residents’political attitude.This paper uses the data from CGSS2010，based on the multilevel models，to examine the change of Chinese residents’political values and its influence on their trust in government under the background of marketization.It finds first，the authoritarian political values are weakening obviously，but the democratic political values are not increasing greatly. Second，residents’ trust in government shows regional differences and there is a linear decreasing relationship between the levels of marketization and the trust in government.Third，it shows the authoritarian political values can prompt residents’ trust in government，but it will be weakened as the marketization process going on and the influences of democratic political values are not evident.This paper points out that the current residents’ political values may be experiencing a transition，namely from “authoritarism” to “democratism”.This “transitional” political value is different from the liberal and democratic consciousness of western developed countries，as it not only highly recognizes the traditional authoritarian，but also implies the modern democratic spirits.In other words，the modern factors produced by marketization reform have merged gradually into the core political value in Chinese tradition and have formed a bicultural political tendency constituted by tradition and modernity.It is the actual political value that exists in current China.Furthermore，rational thoughts have taken up a lead under the marketization reform.So the most direct way to enhance people’s  trust in government maybe is to transfer the governmental functions and improve their work performance.

Key words:  marketization , political value , democratism , trust in government, authoritarism