Distrust in Government and Preference for Regime Change in China
| DOI | 10.1177/0032321719892166 |
| Published date | 01 May 2021 |
| Date | 01 May 2021 |
| Author | Lianjiang Li |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0032321719892166
Political Studies
2021, Vol. 69(2) 326 –343
© The Author(s) 2020
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/0032321719892166
journals.sagepub.com/home/psx
Distrust in Government
and Preference for
Regime Change in China
Lianjiang Li
Abstract
The article argues that distrust in government reflects a preference for regime change in
authoritarian China. It shows that individuals who have stronger distrust in government also have
a stronger preference for multiparty electoral competition which runs against the gist of one-party
rule and would be a stepping stone toward representative democracy. The article suggests that
the relationship between trust in government and system support in an established democracy
is fundamentally different from its variant in an authoritarian state. The target of distrust shifts
from an electorally accountable government to a self-appointed one, while the target of support
shifts from a system that protects freedom and rights to one that restricts them. The article
concludes that the buffer between distrust in government and preference for regime change is
particularly thin and fragile in China, where the vices of authoritarianism are proven and the
virtues of democracy look promising.
Keywords
trust in government, system support, trust in commitment, support for democracy, China
Accepted: 12 November 2019
Scholars have long debated whether distrust in government weakens system support or
induces a preference for regime change. Focusing on established democracies, some
researchers argue that distrust in incumbent government authorities undermines system
support (Avery, 2006; Bertsou, 2019; Miller, 1974), while others argue that distrust in
government has no significant effect on system support (Citrin, 1974; Intawan and
Nicholson, 2018; Lipset and Schneider, 1983). The discussion, commonly known as the
Miller-Citrin debate, presupposes two dichotomies. One is the dichotomy of trust in gov-
ernment and support for the system (Easton, 1965, 1975) and the other is the dichotomy
Department of Government and Public Administration, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Sha Tin,
Hong Kong
Corresponding author:
Lianjiang Li, Department of Government and Public Administration, The Chinese University of Hong Kong,
Sha Tin, Hong Kong.
Email: lianli@cuhk.edu.hk
892166PSX0010.1177/0032321719892166Political StudiesLi
research-article2020
Article
Li 327
of democracy and authoritarianism. So construed, the debate is about whether distrust in
a democratically elected government depletes support for the democratic system.
The debate undergoes a significant mutation when it is extended to a developing or
emerging democracy, where the government is elected through a flawed election and the
democratic system is yet to be consolidated and improved. Here too, researchers have
reached different conclusions. Some observe that distrust in government has a negative
effect on support for democracy (Sarsfield and Echegaray, 2006; Waldron-Moore, 1999),
others observe no effect because even faulty democracy is considered a lesser evil than
authoritarianism (Bratton and Mattes, 2001; Rose, 2007; Rose and Shin, 2001), and still
others find a positive effect in that distrust in government enhances demands for further
democratization (Doorenspleet, 2012; Johnson, 2005; Moehler, 2009).
The debate undergoes another major mutation when it is extended to authoritarian
China. While one might expect that distrust in the party-state reflects a preference for a
transition to democracy, existing studies reach different conclusions. One scholar finds
that even distrust in local governments weakens regime support (Chen, 2017), another
observes that distrust in the central leadership’s commitment to serving the public interest
enhances a preference for popular elections of the state chairman (Li, 2011), and yet
another argues that distrust in government is associated paradoxically with weaker sup-
port for democracy (Tang, 2012). How does distrust in government affect the preference
for regime change in China? What does this particular case tell us about the relationship
between trust in government and system support?
Drawing on a national survey, the article addresses these questions. It uses trust in the
central government’s anti-corruption commitment as the proxy of trust in government,
and it treats the preference for multiparty electoral competition as the proxy for demo-
cratic support. Then it examines whether distrust in the authoritarian government is posi-
tively associated with the preference for a transition to democracy. The article concludes
with a discussion about how the buffer between trust in government and system support
shrinks and deteriorates as its context shifts from established democracies to authoritarian
states like China.
Data and Methods
The study draws on a dataset that incorporates individual-level data with county/district-
level information on the local economy. The individual-level data come from the 2011–
2012 wave of the Asian Barometer Survey.1 The construction of the county/district-level
data proceeds as follows. Based on the information about Primary Sampling Units (PSUs),
which the survey proprietors kindly shared, 3743 respondents are matched with the coun-
ties or city districts they reside in, thus grouping them into 94 clusters. The strength of the
local economy is measured by the gross domestic product (GDP) per capita in thousand
yuan (1 yuan ≈ US$0.13 in 2019), which is extracted from yearbooks and gazetteers. In a
few exceptions, the city-level GDP statistics substitute for unavailable district-level data.
Considering that it takes some time for local economic changes to affect the political
attitudes of residents, a 1-year lag is taken, that is, the individual-level data are matched
with county/district GDP per capita in 2010.
As with other survey researches on China, the study faces the problem of missing
responses. Little’s missing completely at random (MCAR) test (Little, 1988) shows that
the data are not MCAR (N = 3473; χ2 = 7416; df = 4418; p < 0.001). The analyses of the
correlations between the missingness on the questions concerning trust in government,
To continue reading
Request your trial