The Variant Effect of Decentralization on Trust in National and Local Governments in Asia

Abstract

This research responds to the need to study trust in the national government (national trust) and in local government (local trust) simultaneously and investigates how decentralization reshapes political attitudes toward different layers of government. The argument is that decentralization contributes to variant patterns of political trust, defined by the relative strength of national trust and local trust, across countries. A multilevel analysis of East Asian countries shows that decentralization nurtures local trust in democracies, but decreases local trust in autocracies. Further, decentralization boosts national trust in autocracies, but not in democracies. Such a variant effect of decentralization sheds light on regime stability and viability in democratic and authoritarian countries.

A Genre-based Study of Insurance Sales Agent-Client Interactions in Transformational China’s Rural Areas

“…For example, some people hold that the overuse of trust in local communities tends to compromise the social integrity and thus increases the cost of interpersonal communication. This is especially true when it comes to a society in which interpersonal trust overweighs institutional trust (Chua, Morris, & Ingram, 2009;Tang & Huhe, 2014), which consequently gives rise to Guanxi manipulation or backdoor activities (Lee & Dawes, 2005). Nonetheless, based on the data I collected and what I observe, we do not tend to impose value judgment upon such complex phenomenon, what we can do is to present the facts and uncover the dynamics operating under the interactions.…”

Decentralization and citizen trust: An empirical study of policing in more and less developed countries

“…Research finds different patterns in citizen trust in local government between the more developed and less developed countries. For example, U.S. citizens tend to have higher trust in local government than in the national government, whereas in China and Vietnam, citizens tend to have higher trust in the national government (Tang & Huhe, ). Therefore,Hypothesis Decentralized police systems in the more developed countries will be associated with citizen trust differently from the less developed countries.…”

How political trust matters in emergent democracies: evidence from East and Southeast Asia

“…This repeated experience that gives rise to political trust may explain why the trust so developed is considered to be resilient to policy failure. Second, the studies also show that few factors consistently explain political trust, so that the task of rebuilding political trust remains challenging while concerns that political trust is endogenous to outcomes such as incumbent approval or system support are overstated (Damico et al 2000; Newton 2001; Dalton 2005; Keele 2007; Kim 2010; Tang and Huhe 2014). For instance, even as policy performance – including economic performance – may underpin political trust, studies report that the relationship is not clear-cut: they show that political trust develops only with repeated experience over time, and it generally fails to rise or fall in accord with performance (Mishler and Rose 2001; Torcal 2014; Lacy and Christenson 2017).…”

“…According to the authors, these “partisan rationalisers” appear to discount their own delusions when exercising choices (Lacy and Christenson 2017, 372). Similarly, and perhaps ironically, democratic support does not explain political trust: authoritarian countries such as China may report higher levels of political trust than their democratic counterparts (Newton 2001; Kim 2005; Kim 2010; Tang and Huhe 2014). Indeed, studies frequently report gaps – rather than consistencies – between those such as critical citizens who support democracy and their levels of political trust, prompting some to note that the connection between political trust and democracy “seems highly questionable” (Newton 2001, 207; Dalton 2005; Kim 2005; Kim 2010).…”