Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: Subnational Contextual Influences on Political Trust

政治学博士论文研究：次国家背景对政治信任的影响

• 批准号: 0001954
• 负责人: John Alford
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: William Marsh Rice University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2000
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2000-08-01 至 2002-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0001954&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Political; Science

What are the sources of political trust? Can the political surroundings in which individuals live shape their feelings of trust in government? Although we hear much about the public's low opinion of the government, we understand little about the structure of the attitudes or how political realities work to shape feelings of trust in government. This dissertation examines the attitudinal components of political trust and the linkage between feelings of governmental trust and the political context in which individuals live. These relationships are analyzed by: (1) the collection of original survey data on citizen attitudes toward local governments on information on local political characteristics, and (2) the use of multi-level analytical techniques to investigate how the context created by various governmental structures and political realities affect the political attitudes of residents. The primary objective of this research is to address a basic question: what types of governmental structures serve to enhance public trust in government? This project develops and tests a theory that links local political characteristics to citizen attitudes toward government. Specifically, the political characteristics surrounding residents are posited to affect their assessments of political outcomes, the political decision-making process, and the people in government. These assessments, in turn, are expected to influence attitudes of political trust. By gathering data on local governmental structures (such as election form and direct democratic mechanisms) and political realities (such as council diversity and partisan competition) from a range of localities, and merging this information with measures of citizen attitudes, the dissertation can determine how variation in citizen attitudes relates to differences in political structures and realities. Findings from this research provide information to the debate about the sources of governmental mistrust as well as insight into how contextual variables can contribute to an understanding of individual-level attitudes.

政治信任的来源是什么？ 个人生活的政治环境能否塑造他们对政府的信任感？ 尽管我们听到了很多关于公众对政府的看法的信息，但我们对态度的结构或政治现实如何塑造对政府的信任感，我们对政府的结构一无所知。 该论文研究了政治信任的态度组成部分，以及政府信任感与个人生活的政治背景之间的联系。 这些关系由以下分析：（1）收集有关公民对地方政府有关地方政治特征信息的态度的原始调查数据，以及（2）使用多层分析技术来研究各种政府结构和政治现实所创造的环境如何影响居民的政治态度。这项研究的主要目的是解决一个基本问题：哪种类型的政府结构有助于增强公众对政府的信任？ 该项目开发并测试了一种将当地政治特征与公民对政府态度联系起来的理论。 具体而言，围绕居民的政治特征是为了影响他们对政治成果，政治决策过程和政府人民的评估。 反过来，这些评估有望影响政治信任的态度。 通过收集有关地方政府结构（例如选举形式和直接民主机制）和政治现实（例如理事会多样性和党派竞争）的数据，并将这些信息与公民态度的衡量标准合并，论文可以确定公民态度的差异与政治结构和现实的差异有关。 这项研究的结果为有关政府不信任的来源的辩论提供了信息，以及对上下文变量如何有助于理解个人水平态度的洞察力。