The double-edged effect of political trust on the COVID-19 pandemic: empirical evidence from China

ABSTRACT

This study follows numerous academic discussions on how political trust helps mitigate the spread of COVID-19. Using two waves of pandemic data in China, we estimate whether the central and local political trust has double-edged effects on COVID-19 mitigation. The results show that localities with high political trust were associated with more COVID-19 cases in the first outbreak and long-run rebounds, but also demonstrate notable disparities in COVID-19 cases linked to hierarchical trust between central and local governments. Trust in both central and local government was independently linked to a higher number of COVID-19 cases. However, when considering the impacts of combinations of trust in central and local governments, trust in local government could potentially contribute to the containment of COVID-19. These results add to a growing literature that high political trust may not always be good and echo the well-established association between trust and health, particularly during a pandemic.

Key message

• - We demonstrate the double-edged effects of central and local political trust during the early and long-term stages of COVID-19, when the effects of local political trust may be less substantive.

• - The effects of hierarchical trust in central and local governments are validated, and there were different effects of central and local political trust on COVID-19 spread.

• - In conclusion, the high political trust may not always be good.

KEYWORDS:

• Political trust
• COVID-19
• double-edged effect

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethical approval

Our institute does not require ethical approval for this type of study.

Data availability statement

The datasets used in this study are confidential but partially available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

Humanities and Social Science Foundation of the Ministry of Education in China [21YJC630082], and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, China [2022jbkyjd002].

Notes on contributors

Ning Liu

Ning Liu is a lecturer in the School of Management at Lanzhou University. His research focuses on health policy analysis, and applied micro-econometrics.

Guoxian Bao

Guoxian Bao is a professor and the founding dean of the School of Management at Lanzhou University. His research centers around government performance management.

Xiaohui Wang

Xiaohui Wang is an associate professor at the School of Public Health at Lanzhou University. Her research focuses on health systems and services.