How trust and dialogue shape political participation in mainland China

This study aims to examine how the perceived propinquity of government (defined by responsiveness and transparency) influences citizens’ perception about government and affects the relationship between political trust and contact-type political participation in mainland China. Specifically, we believe that trust in government’s ability, benevolence and integrity matter more to contact-type political participation under a high level of perceived dialogic propinquity than under a low level. We use PROCESS to analyze third wave data from the Asian Barometer Survey to understand these moderation effects. Based upon the data from 3,472 mainland Chinese citizens, the results show that the more citizens trust their government’s ability, the higher their willingness to conduct contact-type participation under conditions of high perceived dialogic propinquity. Under conditions of low perceived dialogic propinquity, however, trust in government’s ability has no predictive effect on citizens’ willingness to participate in contact-type political activities. Moreover, compared with the dimension of trust in government’s ability, perceived dialogic propinquity fails to moderate the relationships between trust in government’s benevolence and integrity, and contact-type political participation.