From Fear to Love: Dissecting Political Trust in China

From Fear to Love: Dissecting Political Trust in China | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Article From Fear to Love: Dissecting Political Trust in China Yu-Sung Su, Yu Liu, Meng Zhu This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-4534610/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract The remarkably high level of political trust observed in Chinese surveys has ignited enduring debates regarding whether fear has inflated these numbers. The opposing sides share one assumption: fear and trust are inherently contradictory. Our study proposes an alternative view. Grounded in cognitive dissonance theory, which holds that induced compliance can lead to sincere attitude change, we argue that fear has in fact increased political trust in China. We take Xi's sweeping anti-corruption campaign as a quasi-natural experiment to test this theory. Using 2002-2021 survey data and employing a Difference-in-Differences model, we take the campaign as treatment and regime insiders as the treated group, finding that political trust among regime insiders increased faster than among outsiders during the campaign. This finding withstands various robustness checks. Our study not only addresses the fear-love conundrum in China studies but also uncovers a general mechanism of legitimacy production in deeply authoritarian states. Social science/Psychology/Human behaviour Social science/Politics and international relations Full Text Additional Declarations There is NO Competing Interest. Supplementary Files fearLoveApp.pdf Cite Share Download PDF Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. Our growing team is made up of researchers and industry professionals working together to solve the most critical problems facing scientific publishing. Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-4534610","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":315447005,"identity":"1264e44f-39d0-47ba-9b9f-a082b1e77bdd","order_by":0,"name":"Yu-Sung Su","email":"data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAZAAAAAyAQMAAABI0h/eAAAABlBMVEX///8AAABVwtN+AAAACXBIWXMAAA7EAAAOxAGVKw4bAAABBElEQVRIiWNgGAWjYDADfiA+AEZAIEGUFsk2krUYHANTRGiRn5FjJvmz7Y7d5vvtDw8X/LqT2N/AfPA2D4NdHk7Db+SYSfO2PUvedozH4PDMvmeJMw6wJVvzMCQX49QiAdTC2HY42ewYD8Nh3p7DiQ0HeMykeRgOJDbgd9jhZOM29gdgLfMP8H/Dq4UB6DAJ3rbDdgZsDAaHeX4cTtxwgIcNrxaDM8+KrXnOHU6QOJZjcJi34bDxxsNsxpZzDJJxO6w9eePNH2WH7fmbjz/+zPPnsOy8480Pb7ypsMPtMAYOAxAJUcAIjE8GZrDtONUDAfsDEGkP4fzBp3IUjIJRMApGKgAAow1fCHjy4wkAAAAASUVORK5CYII=","orcid":"","institution":"Tsinghua University","correspondingAuthor":true,"prefix":"","firstName":"Yu-Sung","middleName":"","lastName":"Su","suffix":""},{"id":315447006,"identity":"b27da02f-d87e-42fe-8bfa-813ba0dc300b","order_by":1,"name":"Yu Liu","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Tsinghua University","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Yu","middleName":"","lastName":"Liu","suffix":""},{"id":315447007,"identity":"1da13824-0cbc-46e6-b3f4-0b0bddd90f59","order_by":2,"name":"Meng Zhu","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Tsinghua University","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Meng","middleName":"","lastName":"Zhu","suffix":""}],"badges":[],"createdAt":"2024-06-05 13:56:27","currentVersionCode":1,"declarations":"","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-4534610/v1","doiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-4534610/v1","draftVersion":[],"editorialEvents":[],"editorialNote":"","failedWorkflow":false,"files":[{"id":69469399,"identity":"1facec05-d4ff-4554-88cc-61d5713ca314","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2024-11-20 16:38:29","extension":"pdf","order_by":1,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"manuscript-pdf","size":366773,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"fearlove.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-4534610/v1_covered_49ef1520-f0b5-4285-9240-eeafa4e4e329.pdf"},{"id":58533816,"identity":"d58beaff-4450-47af-b1c5-3bb707ba07d1","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2024-06-18 01:52:52","extension":"pdf","order_by":1,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"supplement","size":238591,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"fearLoveApp.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-4534610/v1/4cb89b8731884f1d467ef0fd.pdf"}],"financialInterests":"There is \u003cb\u003eNO\u003c/b\u003e Competing Interest.","formattedTitle":"From Fear to Love: Dissecting Political Trust in China","fulltext":[],"fulltextSource":"","fullText":"","funders":[],"hasAdminPriorityOnWorkflow":false,"hasManuscriptDocX":false,"hasOptedInToPreprint":true,"hasPassedJournalQc":"","hasAnyPriority":true,"hideJournal":true,"highlight":"","institution":"","isAcceptedByJournal":false,"isAuthorSuppliedPdf":true,"isDeskRejected":"","isHiddenFromSearch":false,"isInQc":false,"isInWorkflow":false,"isPdf":true,"isPdfUpToDate":true,"isWithdrawnOrRetracted":false,"journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true},"keywords":"","lastPublishedDoi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-4534610/v1","lastPublishedDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-4534610/v1","license":{"name":"CC BY 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"},"manuscriptAbstract":"The remarkably high level of political trust observed in Chinese surveys has ignited enduring debates regarding whether fear has inflated these numbers. 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