| Modern social policy is becoming an important source of political legitimacy.In existing theoretical studies,self-interest believes that policy beneficiaries will improve their trust in the government after receiving welfare benefits.The theory of distributive justice expands the discussion and holds that only when policy beneficiaries obtain welfare benefits in line with the expectation of justice can they really improve the level of government trust.The uncertainty of the relationship between policy welfare and government trust provides important enlightenment for public policy evaluation,reminding researchers to take into account the multiple perspectives of interest and justice to accurately evaluate the social consequences of public policy.The construction and improvement of social policy system is an important part of modern Chinese national governance modernization.This paper takes the pooling of medical insurance for urban and rural residents as a policy case.This policy aims to break the barrier of household registration,eliminate the binary divide between urban and rural residents in medical insurance,and guarantee all citizens to enjoy equal medical treatment and rights,providing a proper case for identifying the causal mechanism of social policy affecting government trust.Empirical research is divided into two parts:causal effect and mechanism analysis.First,the three waves of Chinese household tracking survey data from 2012 to 2016 were used to carry out causal inference using the difference model(DID)to evaluate the causal effect of social policies on citizens’ trust in government.Taking the pilot policy of resident medical insurance pooling as an example,it was found that compared with the areas without the pilot policy,the pooling policy significantly increased the government trust level of citizens in the pilot areas by 3%.Second,using the data from the 2013 survey of China’s general social situation and using the interaction effect analysis to test the two key factors of interest and justice,two main findings are reported.First,the benefit effect is confirmed,that is,the level of trust in government increases among citizens who benefit from social policies.Specifically,farmers who directly benefited from the pilot policy saw their trust in government rise by a significant 6 percent.The second is to confirm the justice effect,that is,the stronger the beneficiaries’ perception of justice,the higher their trust in the government.The results show that for every 1%increase in farmers’ perceived fairness of treatment,the probability of their government trust level increasing is 3.4%.For every 1%increase in farmers’ sense of opportunity justice,the probability of their government trust level increasing is 3.3%.Among them,the perception of treatment justice is calculated based on objective benefit results,while the perception of right justice represents individual subjective value preference.On the one hand,the research adds to the empirical evidence that social policies affect trust in government.Taking the pooling of medical insurance for urban and rural residents in China as an example,the research proves that social policies significantly improve citizens’ trust in the government,and the two have a causal relationship.Accurately identify two key factors that lead to changes in political attitudes caused by policy benefits.It is not only related to rational computation,but also influenced by the perception of fairness.On the other hand,the research refines the factors of fairness perception and expands the theoretical dimension of the working conditions of government trust.The results show that the perceived fairness of rural and urban rights is positively related to political trust.This means that with China’s economic development and social policy transformation,the subjective value preference of individual citizens is also changing.In China,the sense of right is likely to become an important value variable affecting political trust. |
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