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Trust, political knowledge and institutionalized political participation: Evidence from China

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Abstract

There is a strong ongoing debate about the impact of trust and political knowledge on institutionalized political participation. Based on social exchange theory, this study examines the roles of social trust, political trust, and political knowledge on citizen voting in grassroots elections by using logistic regression. The logistic regression analysis of this study shows that social trust, political trust, and political knowledge have significantly positive effects on the likelihood of voting in grassroots elections in China. More importantly, it finds that the level of citizens’ political knowledge can positively moderate the relationship between political trust and the likelihood of citizen voting in grassroots elections. “Political knowledge” can be regarded as a kind of political self-education for citizens. In view of this, trust and political knowledge can be seen as vital preconditions for citizen voting in grassroots elections. This study suggests that the government should pay more attention to the positive roles of trust and political knowledge in promoting political participation and democracy construction at the grassroots level.

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  1. School of Marxism, Shanghai Maritime University, Shanghai, 201306, China

    Yong Li

  2. School of Customs and Public Administration, Shanghai Customs College, Shanghai, 201204, China

    Xiao Yu

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We are grateful to the CGSS for their data used in this article.

Chinese General Social Survey中国综合社会调查, 中国人民大学调查与数据中心2010年(National Survey Research Center (NSRC). Beijing: Renmin University of China. 2010). For more information about the survey methods, please see http://cgss.ruc.edu.cn/#, accessed 25 March 2021.

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Li, Y., Yu, X. Trust, political knowledge and institutionalized political participation: Evidence from China. Curr Psychol 42, 15019–15029 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-022-02847-z

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