A Brief Analysis Of The Roots Of Public Credibility Weakness Of Our Local Government And Its Countermeasures

As degrees of public credibility, the public trust of government embodies the capacity of government's credibility, which reflects the attitude and extent of citizens'credit on governmental behaviors. It is a basic standard on evaluation of the governmental behaviors, its ability on fulfillment of the public responsibilities as well as the public credibility. As a rare political resource that exists objectively and invisibly, the public trust of government is full of inestimably huge energy. Higher degrees of public trust of government demonstrate higher intensity of public credibility, which can ensure the implementation of public policies and the consolidation of the regime. Comparatively, the public trust of local government is much more complicated than the public trust of central government for the dual nature of local government's functions and the interests. Therefore, the attitude and extent of citizens'credit on government are based on the local governments'behaviors.What are the elements of the citizens'sense of public credibility? The public trust of government is a concept of the degree of government's credibility. In a certain extent, it is a subjective cognition. Nevertheless, different governmental behaviors and its influence on the livelihood root the degrees of the public credibility. Therefore, the elements of public trust of government can be summed up as the degree of political democratization, the degree of administrative nomocracy, the degree of officials'probity, the degree of policymaking regularity and the degree of the satisfaction on government. According to the above four elements, the degree of a governmental public credibility can be judged rather accurately.Undergone the reform and opening-up, China's rapid economic growth and improving of people's living advanced the governmental public credibility. At present, a number of government sectors ignore the problems of governmental credibility. As the deepening reform and alternating system, China may be harassed by the pressure and handicaps of all aspects because of the disadvantages of old system and opinions. The decline of governmental behaviors, policy and performance weakens the public trust of the local governments. Moreover, the roaring tendency of public crisis events and corruption demonstrates the decline of the public trust of local governments. The factors as follows:The first is the epochal factor.China is in a crucial period -- the period of social transition. In the gradual reform process, the long-term social transition arouses the institutional vacuum, which causes conflicts between new and old system, rent-seeking activities, corruptions and serious social problems, such as roaring population, the issue of public security, environmental degradation, unemployment, health care, crimes and traffic problems. New problems interweaves with old problems, which makes the governments unable to deal with these issues. Additionally, it causes the public suspicion, repulsion, conflicts between local government and the people. Therefore, the above issues weaken the public trust of local governments.The second is the governmental factor.Governmental factor is the key to the weakness of the local government's public trust. While times change and social transition, the government damages the people's interests and causes the public distrust. It can be generally summed up as the governmental self-benefits the demoded concept and the defects administrative system.The third is the public factor.The public expectation is a relevant factor of governmental public trust. As the governmental behaviors are closer to public expectations, the public sense of credibility gets stronger.Finally, the paper explores the practical approaches on enhancing the public trust of China's local governments, which is based on the above analysis as well as the successful practices in the U.S.A, Western Europe and other countries. (1) To establish the people-oriented concept and optimize the governmental orientation of value. Firstly, the government should renovate the civil servants'administrative concept and advocate the orientation of "people-oriented" value. Secondly, the government should promote and strengthen educational campaign on credit; foster the officials'the concept of credit, consciousness of credit and ethics of credit. Thirdly, the government should enforce the civil servants'ethical education of administration; foster and perfect the moral character of the civil servants, especially the leading cadres. (2) To define the responsibilities of the government and transform the governmental functions. As social affairs governor and macroeconomic adjuster, government should administer the social affairs with limited power in order to build a good macro environment for the market economy. In particular, according to the needs of the developing situation, local governments of all levels should distribute power to various social organizations and inspirit their enthusiasm and initiative. The government must transform the functions, carry out limited thought, build a limited government, and ensure"dos and don'ts". (3) To strengthen the establishment of rules and improve the systems and regulations. Comprehensive administrative system and legal system ensure the improving of the local government's public credibility, which are the objective prerequisites to ease the weakness of the local government's public credibility during this period. (4) To consolidate the moral culture and enhance the diathesis of the people. Trust is morality in the final analysis. Therefore, in order to enhance the public credibility, the government must cultivate moral level radically.