The Relationship Between Public Trust In Government And Citizens’ Attitude Towards NIMBY Facilities

With the rapid development of economics and society, the public affairs regarding to NIMBY (Not-In-My-Back-Yard) facilities have become significant challenge to the government. It has been noted that some citizens’ attitude can be described as strong objection to some certain NIMBY facilities in some cities, some of which had led to mass incidents with bad effects. Attitudes play an important role in forming actions. The research on the citizens’ attitude towards NIMBY facilities can be theoretically or practically seen as the key of the solutions to the problems regarding to NIMBY facilities. Taking the trash incinerators as the example for NIMBY facilities, the author investigated the relationship between public trust in government and citizens’ attitude towards NIMBY facilities in terms of trust theory.After systematically reviewing the related researches home and abroad, the author came forward several hypotheses which suggested that public trust in local government, public trust in central government, public trust in the trash incinerator company, the general fairness of the government policy-making and citizens’ risk perception to the trash incinerators may affect the citizens’ attitude towards the trash incinerators. With the empirical study of a sample of 1133 local residents in Zhejiang Province, the author tested those hypotheses and made some important discoveries as following. Public trust in local government, central government and the trash incinerator company positively affect the citizens’ attitude towards the trash incinerators. The higher the trust level is, the more positive the attitude will be. In another words, the citizens with higher level trust in government or the trash incinerators are more likely to accept the trash incinerators or the nearby to-be-built incinerators. Meanwhile, citizens’ risk perceptions to the trash incinerators negatively impact their attitude towards the trash incinerators. It is much more possible for the citizen to reject and oppose the building of a trash incinerator near their residencies if they perceived the trash incinerators as dangerous or risky. Addition to the findings above, the general fairness of the government policy-making turns out to be irrelevant to the citizens’ attitude towards the trash incinerators.Based on the research results and the collected data, five practical suggestions have been provided at the end of this dissertation. First of all, government should transform its responsibilities and improve its working efficiency in order to boost public trust in government. Secondly, government credit system is necessary, which will provide the warm-bed nourishing the public trust in government. Thirdly, in terms of promoting the public trust level of the trash incinerator companies, government should form a supervising system engaging different stakeholders. Fourthly, citizens’ right to know and right to participate should be ensured so that citizens’ interest would not be compromised. Last but not least, the building and the operation of the trash incinerators should be enhanced much more scientifically so that citizens may perceive the trash incinerators as less dangerous or risky than they thought.