地方政府信用影响因素及影响机理研究——基于116个县级行政区域的调查

信任危机是最深刻的危机,如何提升政府信用水平,重塑政府公信力是政府和学术界面临的共同问题。在对信用与信任两个概念进行严格区分,并对政府信用内涵进行清晰界定之后,根据以往研究成果,文章提出了公务员素质、政府能力、制度环境及信用文化对地方政府信用影响的四个假设,进而构建了地方政府信用影响机理的概念模型。在对我国116个县级行政区域问卷调查的基础上,运用回归分析和路径分析等方法首次定量考察了公务员素质、政府能力、制度环境及信用文化四个变量对作为公共主体的地方政府的信用水平的影响强度、影响路径。结果表明,制度环境对地方政府信用的影响最强,影响路径最为复杂。信用文化、政府能力、公务员素质对政府信用的影响依次减弱,且公务员素质只能通过政府能力间接影响政府信用。因此,在信用政府建设过程中,需要重点优化地方制度环境并加强信用文化建设,同时也要积极提高政府能力和公务员队伍素质。

Research on the Determinants and its Influencing Mechanism of Local Government Trustworthiness:Based on the Questionnaire Survey of 116 Chinese County-Level Governments

The objective of this paper is to illustrate and examine the determinants and its influencing mechanism of Chinese local government trustworthiness.Based on extensive literature review,eight hypotheses are proposed.Then,quantitative methods such as regression analysis and path analysis are employed to analyze the determinants and its influencing mechanism of local government trustworthiness by using data from the questionnaire survey of 116 Chinese county-level governments.The results show that institutional environment has the strongest overall impact on government trustworthiness,which can influence government trustworthiness both directly and indirectly through other variables.The overall impact of credit culture,government ability,quality of civil servants on government trustworthiness weakens in turn,and the quality of civil servants can only indirectly affect government trustworthiness.The key limitation of the study is that the questionnaire survey covers few counties outside Zhejiang Province,which makes it difficult to generalize the results to all Chinese local governments.Another difficulty arises from operationalizing some constructs.According to the results,in the process of building a trustworthy government,we should lay special stress on optimizing institutional environment and developing credit culture.At the same time,government ability and the overall quality of civil servants should be improved.This paper distinguishes between trustworthiness and trust,and clarifies what government trustworthiness is.More important,this paper analyzes the determinants of Chinese local government trustworthiness for the first time.Thus,the findings of this study help us to recognize the antecedent of political trust and better understand why people trust or distrust government.