Strengthening Government Trust by Cracking Down on Corruption

Abstract

Clarifying the mechanism between anti-corruption measures and enhanced trust in government is of great practical significance to ensuring good social governance and public confidence. Based on mixed cross-sectional data from CGSS 2015 and CSS V (2013–2021), this paper uses empirical analysis to explore the effect of trust in government on anti-corruption performance; the influence of anti-corruption performance on government trust; and the impact of public service efficiency and the level of rule of law in social governance on the relationship between them. The effectiveness of basic public services and the level of rule of law in social governance are found to play an intermediary role between strict anti-corruption measures and government trust. This paper adopts a diachronic analysis to discuss the trend of trust in government in the anti-corruption context. It uses multi-source heterogeneous data to support, deepen, and supplement the conclusions of previous research.