Social Mobility and Political Trust in Contemporary China

• In Event: 1552 - Section on Asia and Asian America Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 min): Table 9: Governance and Discontent

Abstract

Political trust is crucial for the legitimacy of a regime. Hence， the impact of social mobility on political trust is an important topic concerned by the scholars who care about the political consequences of social mobility. Using the data from China General Social Survey (CGSS)， this research not only measures the inter-generational occupational mobility， inter-generational educational mobility， and intra-generational occupational mobility of Chinese citizens in objective dimension， but also measures the Chinese people’s perceived social mobility and expected social mobility in subjective dimension. Based on respondents’ trust on the information about eight social issues which are provided by government institutions and central media， a “Political Trust Index” is constructed by using factor analysis. On this basis， this study further examines the effect of social mobility on political trust in China. The results show that： (1) the political trust not only has vertical structure， which means the trust in different levels of government， but also has the horizontal structure， which means the trust in a certain level of the government across different social issues； (2) the reform and the great economic development in China over the past three decades has provided great opportunities for Chinese citizens to achieve upward social mobility， and brings them hopes to live a better life in the future. The experiences of inter-generational and intra-generational upward mobility， the perception and the expectation of upward social mobility all enhance Chinese citizens’ trust on the government； (3) however， Chinese people’s experience of downward social mobility before 2006 hasn’t significantly undermined their political trust yet at that time period. These findings， on one hand， explain the reason why Chinese citizens still hold a relatively higher political trust on the government， on the other hand， indicate that the experience and expectation of upward mobility which are largely due to socioeconomic development may contribute to the social and political stability in China.

Author

• Zhiming Sheng, Shanghai University