How Does Socioeconomic Status And Publicservice Quality Affect The Role Cognition Ofgovernment?

Reshaping government functions and building a service-oriented government are the key tasks of China's current administrative reform.It is helpful if we understand the true expectations of the public and grasp the differences in the public's perception of the role of the government,when talking about controlling the direction of the government's reform and carrying out the promotion work precisely.Since the reform and opening up,China has experienced very drastic social stratification.As a result,the differences in socioeconomic status and resource endowment between different classes or groups,have become increasingly disparate.Socioeconomic status(SES),reflected through educational level,economic status(income)and occupation,is an indicator that depicts the disparity of interests and cognitive resources between different classes.However,the existing research is not enough to explain how socioeconomic status could lead to differences in public preferences for the role cognition of government,and did not explain well how the governance performance of government causes cognition differences.That is why it is of strong theoretical and practical significance to study the impact of socioeconomic status conditions and quality of public services on the differences in cognitive preferences of the government role.This paper formed a new analytical framework for socioeconomic status,public service quality,and role recognition of government basing on literature research.Then we conducted an empirical analysis of the above issues using China General Social Survey(CGSS),China Regional Economic Data(CRED),and Civil Administration Statistics Yearbook Data.The results showed that:(1)The public in China was generally expecting a government with limited intervention.(2)From the perspective of social stratification,socioeconomic status could lead to different cognitions of the government's role.Among them,the improvement of education and income could increase the public's preference of “small government and less administrative interventions”,while the promotion official character of occupation could strengthen the public's agreement of “big government and more administrative interventions”.(3)The improvement in the quality of public services not only enhanced the power-identity of government and the public's willingness to be managed,but also played an important role in regulating the influence of education level on the preferences of “small government” and alleviated the cognition difference of government role caused by stratum differentiation.In view of this,in order to respond to the real challenges and grasp the real needs of the public in the process of function reshaping,the government should first continue to make efforts from the system foundation,function transfer,and concept reconstruction,to steadily advance the goal of limited government construction and clarify the functional boundaries.Secondly,must control the interest-division and ideological polarization risks caused by stratum differentiation,not only promoting social equity through the development of the economy and the improvement of the redistribution system,but employing educational policies as the starting point to strengthen flow between classes.Thirdly,should strengthen the public's power-identity towards government by improving public services quality and governance performance,to empower the reconstruction of government functions and the building of a serviceoriented government.