The Research On Influencing Factors Of Government’s Credibility In Public Events

The credibility of government, is the influence power and charisma of governmenton penple, also people’s satisfaction and trust in government. It is a political capitalguadually accumulated by the government of a country in a long process, and the levelof government’s credibility in the minds of people. The credibility of government notonly affects people’s acceptance on government, but also related to the effectiveness ofgovernance and the government’s political legitimacy. Influenced by the feudal thought,China’s government adherence to the “official standard” administrative idea as the mainbody in a long time, bureaucracy is serious, government regards itself as the authorities.In the long ruling process, government’s “Absence”,“Dislocation” and “Offside” inmanagement bring big negative impact on the efficiency of governance. Especiallysince entering the new century, various public events break out frequently, and hassounded the alarm to the credibility of government.Since “SARS” in2003, China has entered a period of multiple public events.Various public emergencies in recent years come one after another, including bothnatural disasters and man-made disasters. For example, Songhua River pollutionincident in2005, Wenchuan earthquake and Sanlu milk powder incident in2008,Xinjiang’s7·5incident in2009, and a large area of haze weather in North Chinarecently. These events is a serious challenge for the governments at all levels because ofits uncertainty and sudden in outbreak, coupled with the wide spread and strongdestructive force. In emergencies, governments’ ruling ability has been widespreadconcerned in society. People care more about their own interests, and pay more attentionto the government to how to safeguard the interests of the public in crisis. However,practice has proved that in the face of all kinds of public emergencies, some of ourgovernments’ crisis management ability is not just as one wishes, management level isrelatively weak. Therefore, in public events, as the main body of crisis management,government must be in a highly responsible attitude and give full play to the subjectiveinitiative, and constantly improve the ability to deal with public crisis. In the interests ofpeople at the same time, reshaping the credibility of government.This paper proceeds from China’s national conditions, based on the domestic andforeign research status and basic theory about government credibility and public crisis,and the typical public events occurred in recent years at home and abroad as a case, through empirical research, analyzes the factors affecting the credibility of governmentin public crisis, to find out the successful practice and failed measures of governmentsin each case. Taking this as a warning, this paper puts forward the countermeasures andsuggestion targeted on how to enhance the credibility of government in public events.