Governance Innovations and Citizens’ Trust in Local Government: Electoral Impacts in China's Townships

Abstract We surveyed 2,221 rural residents in twenty towns across ten provinces in China. Structural equation models (SEM) found the quality of government, impartiality of institutions, and authoritarian values among citizens are the three main sources of citizens’ trust in local government. Among various types of recent institutional innovation and government reform, only a type that involves citizens in a formal electoral process, called ‘open nomination and direct election (ONDE)’, significantly improved trust in township-level government. Our models reveal that the movement of power to select local leaders from the hands of upper-level government to local residents erodes the influence of the so-called ‘traditional authority orientation’ among citizens, and enables them to assess trust level according to the competence of the government. Furthermore, elections reduce the trust-generating effect of institutional impartiality as citizens are enfranchised in the ‘input’ process of government, therefore emphasizing ‘outputs’ less.