Inequality, Government Trust and Election Participation

It is a hot topic that how to promote Social transformation of the trust in government and election participation in China. This article examines the relationship of inequality, government trust and election participation and why people take part in convention political participations.The author argues that government trust plays an important role in convention political participation, but contrary to more traditional models, there is regional disparity of the convention political participation in China. In addition, the authors posit that government trust is strongly affected by perceptions of income inequality and social preferences for income inequality not real economic inequality. Using the data of Chinese General Social Survey 2006(CGSS2006), the author presents Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) on the effects of inequality and government trust on the convention political participation, controlling for other related factors. Finding indicates that inequality is the strongest determinant of government trust and that government trust has a great effect on convention political participations.