Perceived local government performance and people’s life satisfaction: the role of trust in local government and political participation

Life satisfaction (LS) has received widespread attention, but few studies explored the determinants of people’s LS in China from the perspective of perceived performance of local government (PPLG). Therefore, taking trust in local government and political participation into consideration, this study employed the data in 2021CSS to analyse the relationship between PPLG and LS. The results showed that PPLG had a direct positive relationship with people’s LS. Citizens’ trust in local government played a mediating role in this relationship. That is, PPLG had a significant positive association with citizens’ trust in local government, which in turn had a significant positive relationship with people’s LS. Unexpectedly, institutional and non- institutional political participation played different roles, namely, institutional political participation rather than non-institutional political participation played a mediating role in this model. The conclusions provided a meaningful supplement for related studies, but some potential limitations require further discussion.