The Credibility of Government

Oxford Advanced Learner's English-Chinese Dictionary. Beijing: The Commercial Press, 2004: 1896

Simmel, George. The philosophy of Money. London: Routledge, 1978: 178-179

Luhmann, N. Trust and Power, Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, 1979.

Colquitt, Jason A et al. "Trust, trustworthiness, and trust propensity: A meta-analytic test of their unique relationships with risk taking and job performance." Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol 92(4), Jul. 2007: 909-927.

Misztal, Barbara. Trust in Modern Societies: The Search for the Bases of Social Order. Polity Press, Mar. 1996

Mayer, Roger, C. et al. "An integrative model of organizational trust." Academy of Management Review, 20 (3), 1995: 709-734.

Coleman, James, Samuel. Foundations of Social Theory. The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1990: 93-115, 175-189

Here is an eccentric phenomenon in recent China: three years ago, when the terrible and disastrous earthquake happened in Southwest China, almost every person, no matter at home or abroad, praised Chinese government for its quick response and proper handling of the catastrophe. However, when the nuclear radiation incident in Japan broke out, many people turned to blame Chinese government for its failure in notifying people transparent and accurate information in time. Our group is aiming at tracing the reasons that cause the gradually lost mutual trust especially at a crisis using the framework of trust in sociology and analyzing from the respective aspects of trustors and trustees. Moreover, we will propose some rational and reasonable suggestions if possible.

Among the different kinds of trusts, one of the most significant kinds is the mutual trust between the government and citizens, which can even be defined as an essential foundation of the society. If the citizens lose trust of the government, the society will not only achieve no harmony, but also even collapse. And when at crisis, mutual trust between government and citizens plays a much more important role than ever to help the whole nation to pull through. As to the phenomenon of the gradually diminishing trust between government and citizens in China, it can affect the stability of our society and even in the long run can ruin the sustainable development of our country. Therefore, the mutual trust between government and citizens in China at a crisis is never a topic that can be neglected.