Does Public Servants’ Low Trust in Citizen Raters Really Matter? Evidence from Mainland China

Abstract

This article examines the trust that public servants have in Chinese citizens using a typical public service rating and ranking system: the Assessment and Discussion of Professional Ethos (ADPE). We pose questions on whether public servants expressed concerns about trusting citizens as raters, whether the seemingly low interest of citizens in rating means that their ratings are reliable, what the relationship was between low trust and the citizens, whether the ADPE was an incentive, and public service responsiveness after the ADPE had been completed. These questions are assessed by (1) a content analysis of official and scholastic ADPE articles, (2) a survey of municipal officials in Yuncheng City where an ADPE operated for several years and (3) the opinions of interviewees. The content analysis reveals that public servants seemed to trust citizens, but the survey data reveals that the opposite might be true. Nevertheless, low trust in citizens did not affect either public service responsiveness or incentivization. Using a gaming perspective, we argue that the ADPE might be an ineffective institutional arrangement. We suggest methods for eliminating public servants lack of trust that include enhancing the value of trust shown in citizens, making trust matter, developing techniques to select citizens experienced in using public services for rankings, and enhancing the transparency of the rating information.