Bowling Alone in Taiwan? Political Trust and Civic Participation of Taiwanese and Their Appraisal of Liberal Democracy and Personal Wellbeing

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ken Ka-wo Fung ◽  
Chao-Lung Liu ◽  
Ming-Lun Chung
Keyword(s):  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Civic Participation ◽  
Political Trust ◽  
Personal Wellbeing

Trust in a Polarized Age

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin Vallier
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Social Welfare ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Empirical Data ◽  
Political Trust ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
Welfare Programs ◽  
Social Welfare Programs ◽  
Downward Spiral

Americans today don’t trust each other and their institutions as much as they used to. The collapse of social and political trust arguably has fueled our increasingly ferocious ideological conflicts and hardened partisanship. But is the decline in trust inevitable? Are we caught in a downward spiral that must end in war-like politics, institutional decay, and possibly even civil war? This book argues that American political and economic institutions are capable of creating and maintaining trust, even through polarized times. Combining philosophical arguments and empirical data, the author shows that liberal democracy, markets, and social welfare programs all play a vital role in producing social and political trust. Even more, these institutions can promote trust justly, by recognizing and respecting our basic human rights.

scholarly journals Social Capital and Mental Health in Rural and Urban China: A Composite Hypothesis Approach

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 665 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaoming Lin ◽  
Ruodan Lu ◽  
Liang Guo ◽  
Bing Liu
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Social Capital ◽  
Civic Participation ◽  
Political Trust ◽  
Urban China ◽  
Community Level ◽  
Outcome Variable ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Rural And Urban ◽  
The Individual

The objective of this study is to follow the composite theory approach to analyze the effect of social capital on self-rated mental health in rural and urban China. Our nationally representative sample includes 10,968 respondents from 130 county-level communities. Two-level random-coefficient linear regressions, which model individual and community variations in subjective mental health, were estimated by taking the hierarchical structure of the dataset into account. We found that a significant proportion of the total variations in self-rated mental health were explained at the community level. We also found an association between low contextual civic trust and poor self-rated mental health after adjusting for individual social capital and individual socioeconomic-demographic variables. The study also revealed that: (1) in rural areas a positive relationship between civic and political trust and mental health existed both at the individual and the community level, respectively; and (2) in urban areas, only political trust at the individual level contributed to better mental health. In addition, the individual and community level political participation exhibited a positive impact on mental health measures in both rural and urban China. The individual level civic participation was positively associated to the outcome variable. However, the community-level civic participation seemed to negatively impact mental health in urban area. Our findings emphasize the importance of both individual and community-level healthcare interventions in China. Finally, this study also found that human capital covariates remained important predictors of self-rated mental health status even after controlling social capital both at individual and community levels. This study suggested that the composite thesis could provide a more convincing narrative than other theories in explaining the effects of both human and social capital on health.

Resource and Social Learning Theories of Political Participation: Ethnic Patterns in Australia

1992 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 269-293 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian McAllister ◽  
Toni Makkai
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Political Participation ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Political System ◽  
Political Trust ◽  
Economic Resources ◽  
Learning Theories ◽  
The Political

AbstractPolitical participation is central to liberal democracy, yet there are substantial variations in the levels of participation observable among different social groups. Empirical theories explain these variations by the different socio-economic resources individuals possess and by their resulting levels of trust and efficacy in the political system. By contrast, social learning theories see these differences in participation as stemming from the values that individuals absorb from the political culture. This article uses Australia—an established liberal democracy with a large immigrant population—as a case study to evaluate these two theories. The results show that immigrants socialized in countries lacking continuous democratic traditions have greater political trust, but also display more authoritarian values. Differences emerge not only in the type of participation being analyzed, but among ethnic groups. The findings support the view that the resource and social learning theories are complementary rather than exclusive explanations for political participation.

The Legacy of Iraq

2015 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Iraq War ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
Islamic State ◽  
Sequence Of Events ◽  
The World ◽  
Free Market Capitalism ◽  
Market Capitalism

This book critically reflects on the failure of the 2003 intervention to turn Iraq into a liberal democracy, underpinned by free-market capitalism, its citizens free to live in peace and prosperity. The book argues that mistakes made by the coalition and the Iraqi political elite set a sequence of events in motion that have had devastating consequences for Iraq, the Middle East and for the rest of the world. Today, as the nation faces perhaps its greatest challenge in the wake of the devastating advance of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and another US-led coalition undertakes renewed military action in Iraq, understanding the complex and difficult legacies of the 2003 war could not be more urgent. Ignoring the legacies of the Iraq War and denying their connection to contemporary events could mean that vital lessons are ignored and the same mistakes made again.

Asymmetrical Attribution of Performance in China

Asian Survey ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 60 (5) ◽  
pp. 978-1003
Author(s):  
Jacqueline Chen Chen ◽  
Jun Xiang
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Cultural Theory ◽  
Political Trust ◽  
Mediation Model ◽  
Multilevel Mediation ◽  
Dual Pathway ◽  
Underlying Mechanisms ◽  
The Impact

Existing studies of the impact of economic development on political trust in China have two major gaps: they fail to explain how economic development contributes to the hierarchical trust pattern, and they do not pay enough attention to the underlying mechanisms. In light of cultural theory and political control theory, we propose adapting performance theory into a theory of “asymmetrical attribution of performance” to better illuminate the case of China. This adapted theory leads to dual pathway theses: expectation fulfillment and local blaming. Using a multilevel mediation model, we show that expectation fulfillment mainly upholds trust in the central government, whereas local blaming undermines trust in local governments. We also uncover a rural–urban distinction in the dual pathway, revealing that both theses are more salient among rural Chinese.

Predator Neoliberalism

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-22
Author(s):  
Kamal Dib
Keyword(s):  
Public Finance ◽  
Monetary Policy ◽  
Market Economy ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Political System ◽  
Social Revolution ◽  
Socioeconomic Change ◽  
Second Republic ◽  
Major Powers ◽  
The Mediterranean

Lebanon, a multi-confessional state, is undergoing a deep socioeconomic change that could trigger a review of its constitutional arrangement. The tiny republic on the Mediterranean was born in 1920 as a liberal democracy with a market economy, where the Christians had the upper hand in politics and the economy. In 1975, Lebanon witnessed a major war that lasted for fifteen years, and a new political system emerged in 1989, dubbed the Ta’ef Accord. The new constitutional arrangement, also known as the “second republic,” transferred major powers to the Muslims. Under the new republic, illiberal policies were adopted in reconstruction, public finance, and monetary policy, coupled with unprecedented corruption at the highest levels. On 17 October 2019, the country exploded in a social revolution which could precipitate the death of the second republic or the demise of the country as another victim of predator neoliberalism.

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