https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5394-5735
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Abstract
Citizens’ satisfaction with governance is a critical political issue in China. How do citizens evaluate the effort to improve governance quality by the Chinese government? Are citizens satisfied with the governance at the local level? Does citizens’ economic well-being affect their evaluation of local governance, and if so, how? Drawing data from the Chinese Household Income Project (CHIP) 2018 survey, this study attempts to provide some insights to these questions by investigating whether citizens’ economic well-being shapes their evaluations of local governance. We find that respondents with a stronger sense of subjective economic well-being are more likely to be satisfied with local governance. However, objective economic well-being has a slightly negative impact on local governance satisfaction. Chinese citizens generally express a high level of satisfaction with local governance. Therefore, perceived economic well-being influences local government favorability more than the representation of economic well-being in material wealth. The findings point to a complex relationship between economic well-being and evaluation of governance quality.
Keywords:
Acknowledgments
The authors thank John James Kennedy, Erik H. Wang, and the participants at ‘Public Opinion toward Governance and Good Citizenship in China’ panel of MPSA 2023 for their helpful comments and suggestions. Any errors are our own.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Data availability statement
The data that support the findings of this study are openly available from the Chinese Household Income Project (CHIP). Researchers interested in accessing the CHIP 2018 dataset can submit a data request through the CHIP data access portal: http://www.ciidbnu.org/chip/chips.asp?year=2018&lang=EN
Notes
1 Guo and Jiang, “China’s ‘New Normal.’”.
2 Zhang, “Xi’s Law-and-Order Strategy.”
3 See Hai, “Anhui: ‘Online Police-Civilian Consultation Hall’ Serves the People at Zero Distance (An hui:”Jingmin Wanshang Yishiting”Fuwu Qunzhong Lingjuli).” Shimei. 2023. “Anhui: ‘Online Police-Civilian Consultation Hall’ serves the people at zero distance (Anhui: “Jingmin Wanshang Yishiting”fuwu qunzhong lingjuli).” People’s Public Security Newspaper (Renmin Gongan Bao). (In Chinese).
4 Zhong, “Coordinated Co-Governance and Grassroots Innovation.”; See also the discussion by the proposal by Britton, “Mini-publics and Political Meritocracy: Towards a New China Model” regarding a new method of accountability.
5 Saich, “Citizens’ Perceptions of Governance in Rural and Urban China”; Saich, “How China’s Citizens View the Quality of Governance under Xi Jinping”; Turiel, Cunningham, and Saich, “To Serve the People.”
6 Also Saich, “Citizens’ Perceptions of Governance in Rural and Urban China”; Turiel, Cunningham, and Saich, “To Serve the People.”
7 Li, Xiao, and Gong, “The Impact of Economic Well-Being on Perceptions of Anti-Corruption Performance.”
8 Ostrom, Governing the Commons.
9 See note 1 above.
10 Peters, “Governance and Comparative Politics.”
11 Ibid.
12 Saich, “Citizens’ Perceptions of Governance in Rural and Urban China”; Saich, “How China’s Citizens View the Quality of Governance under Xi Jinping.”
13 Zhou, “Authoritarian Governance in China.”
14 See, for example, Liu and Fan, “Roles of institutions and dynamic capability.
15 Wang, “Citizens’ Satisfaction with Government Performance.”
16 World Bank, “A Decade of Measuring the Quality of Governance: Governance Matters 2006: Worldwide Governance Indicators.”
17 Yang, Sun, and Li, “What Values Are Evaluated?”
18 Li, “Political Trust in Rural China”; Li, “Reassessing Trust in the Central Government.”
19 Chen, “Local Distrust and Regime Support.”
20 Saich, “How China’s Citizens View the Quality of Governance under Xi Jinping.”
21 Turiel, Cunningham, and Saich, “To Serve the People.”
22 Yuan and Fan, “Identity, Social Exclusion and Perceived Performance.”
23 Wu, Yang, and Chen, “The Politics of Quality-of-Life Issues.”
24 See note 16 above.
25 Also see note 1 above.
26 See note 2 above.
27 Su and Meng, “Selective Responsiveness.”
28 Li and Guo, “Political Incentives, Bureaucratic Behaviors”; Liu et al., “Testing the Correlation between Eco-Environmental Performance and Provincial Official Promotion in China.”
29 Zuo, “Political Selection Institutions and Policy Performance.”
30 Han and Wang, “Performance Management and Environmental Governance in China.”
31 Lewis-Beck and Stegmaier, “Economic Determinants of Electoral Outcomes”; Lewis-Beck Michael and Mary, “Economic Models of Voting.”
32 Rose and Mishler, “Comparing Regime Support.”
33 Ou-Yang and Zhou, “Economic Evaluations and Political Support.”
34 Huang and Zuo, “Bread or Roses.”
35 Lyu and Li, “The Dual Effect of Economic Development.”
36 Chen and Xiang, “Asymmetrical Attribution of Performance in China.”
37 Manzetti and Wilson, “Why Do Corrupt Governments Maintain Public Support?”; Zechmeister and Zizumbo-Colunga, “The Varying Political Toll of Concerns.”
38 Zhu, Lu, and Shi, “When Grapevine News Meets Mass Media.”
39 See note 7 above.
40 Wang and Ji, “Resolving Mechanism of the Contradiction.”
41 Ibid.
42 Yang and Zhao, “Performance Legitimacy, State Autonomy and China’s Economic Miracle”; Zhao, “The Mandate of Heaven and Performance Legitimation”; Zhu, “‘Performance Legitimacy’ and China’s Political Adaptation Strategy.”
43 Luo and Qin, “China’s Local Political Turnove”; Wang, “The Elusive Pursuit of Incentive Systems”; Wong, “Performance, Factions, and Promotion in China.”
44 Wang, “Before the Emergence of Critical Citizens.”
45 Also see note 7 above; Lü, “Does Changing Economic Well-Being Shape Resentment about Inequality in China?”
46 See note 7 above.
47 Also Lü, “Does Changing Economic Well-Being Shape Resentment About Inequality in China?”
48 See note 35 above.
49 See note 7 above.
50 Ibid.
51 Ibid.
52 Zhou and Jin, “Inequality and Political Trust in China.”
53 Choi and Woo, “Political Corruption, Economic Performance, and Electoral Outcomes”; Choi and Woo, “Political Corruption, Economy, and Citizens’ Evaluation.”
54 See note 40 above.
55 See note 34 above; See note 52 above.
56 See note 52 above.
57 Also see note 34 above.
58 Sicular et al., Changing Trends in China’s Inequality.
59 See note 16 above.
60 See note 7 above.
61 While the CHIP 2018 does not disclose respondents’ currently residing provinces, it includes provinces of the respondents’ household registrations at age 14. The inclusion of the provincial fixed effects reduces the sample size by 234. Among the respondents who are missing responses regarding a province of residence at the age 14, about 52% are urban residents and 51% are men. The age ranges from 18 to 91 with a mean of 46 years old and a standard deviation of 16.43. These suggest that there is no pattern in terms of rural-urban, gender, and age. When it comes to educational attainment, about 59% of them completed a middle school or below. This shows that a majority of the missing observations are among those with only compulsory education or below.
62 The income variable reduces the observation by 23,369.
63 See note 7 above.
64 Also see note 52 above.
65 See note 7 above.
66 Also see note 35 above.
67 See note 55 above.
68 See note 7 above.
69 Ibid.
70 Zheng and Gao, “The Mechanism of Government Governance Effectiveness.”
71 Also see note 40 above.
72 See note 40 above; Ji and Hu, “Economic Development and Temporal Relative Acquisition.”
73 Huang, “The Chinese Dream.”
74 Satisfaction with government performance and government trust are distinct, and the transformation of government satisfaction into trust is constrained by multiple factors (see, Wang and Sun, “An Empirical Analysis of the Transformation from Citizen’s Satisfaction into Trust of the Government.”). Although the literature on how vertical relative acquisition affects political trust or support is well-established, few studies delve into the relationship between vertical relative acquisition and governance evaluation, except for the study by Wang and Ji.
75 See note 40 above.
76 Ji and Hu explore the economic sources of temporal relative acquisition based on a compiled global panel dataset (see, Ji and Hu, “Economic Development and Temporal Relative Acquisition.”). The authors find an inverted U-shaped relationship between a country’s per capita GDP level and citizens’ temporal relative acquisition. However, per capita GDP growth rate exerts a positive effect on temporal relative acquisition. The findings also imply a paradox of economic development. While rapid economic growth improves citizens’ temporal relative acquisition, as a country’s GDP continues to grow, higher level of GDP makes citizens more critical of their economic outlook especially when GDP is not growing fast.
77 Also see note 40 above.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Rigao Liu
Rigao Liu is a Ph.D. candidate from the Department of Political Science at the University of Kansas. His research interests include social science experiments, social policy, comparative and international political economy.
Haruka Nagao
Haruka Nagao is an Assistant Professor in the Political Science Department at Oklahoma State University. Her/their research focuses on Chinese politics, health politics, gender and politics.
William Hatungimana
William Hatungimana is a visiting assistant professor in the Political Science Department at Oklahoma State University. His research mainly focuses on Attitudes toward Immigrants. He explores the influence of material and symbolic factors on attitudes towards immigrants in Africa. He also conducts research on Corruption, Political Participation, and Africa-China Relations.