An Emprical Study Of Youth Group’s Political Trust In Contemporary China

Contemporary China is going through a critical period of social transformation, during which the performance of government and political system falls far short of citizens’ expectation. As a result, Chinese citizens’ political trust level suffers rapid and dramatic decline. Especially in the youth groups, political trust is falling at a particularly drastic speed. Network anti-corruption is mainly initiated by youth netizens; political participation apathy is widely spread among youth students; expressions like "fu er dai (second-generation of the rich)", "guan er dai (second-generation of government officials)", "fu wo cheng (push-up, an expression of political apathy)", "duo mao mao (hide-and-seek, an expression of political distrust)" gain great popularity among the youth, etc. All the above phenomenon suggest the large scale of political trust recession among the youth group. As the dominant force of future development and the barometer of society, youth group’s decline in political trust not only severely interferes the current political order, but also endangers the long-term political stability. Under such circumstances, focusing on youth groups’ political trust is undoubtedly of great realistic significance.This dissertation is based on empirical research and takes Political Trust in Contemporary China’s Social Transformation Questionnaire Survey as research data sources, which is conducted by National Social Science Fund Program "Political Trust in Contemporary China’s Social Transformation" research team. By screening out the youth group (under the age of thirty) samples as the key analysis object in the first place, the dissertation analyzes the survey data with SPSS software. With single variable descriptive analysis and bi-variate cross analysis, the dissertation provides an empirical basis for the research of political trust of youth groups.Using inferential indicators, behavior indicators and rhetoric indicators as the theory tool, this dissertation establishes the indicator system to measure the level of political trust in youth groups. This dissertation finds inferential indicators such as widely-spread corruption, indifferent and alert social mood, intensified external trust and persistent personal cult; behavior indicators such as massive immigration, indifference in institutionalized political participation, growing interest in non-institutionalized political participation and secularism behavioral pattern; rhetoric indicators such as negative evaluation of reform and opening-up, dissatisfaction and distrust towards government, suspicious of general public. All the above indicators suggest the severe recession of political trust among the youth group. At the same time, this dissertation also finds indicators showing that the youth group have not surrendered to fatalism and determinism but have hold confidence in the future, which in a certain extent reflects the retention of political trust in the youth group.Because of the specific political socialization environment, coupled with the particular age period, the youth group’s political trust presents unique characteristics: in terms of political trust formation, performance source of political trust in youth groups are seriously weakened, but the social source is comparatively extensive; in terms of political trust structure, personality-based trust attenuated distinctly and institution-based trust grew gradually in youth groups; in terms of political trust manifestation, the youth group tend to express political distrust through external trust and political apathy; in terms of political trust consequence, the youth group’s political trust suffers a large number of loss but still reserves some to a certain extent.According to the unique situation of the youth group’s political trust, this dissertation further analyzes the formation of youth group’s political trust and builds an influencing factors model. This dissertation proposes that the youth group’s political trust is jointly influenced by the youth group characteristics (including education level, value concept and political participation), government-level factors (including political system, government performance, public policy, government officials and political value), society-level factors (including social trust, social diversification level and social equity) and mass media. By probing into the current situation, characteristics and formations of youth group’s political trust, this dissertation hopes to help promote political trust among the youth group.