JCC — pp. 1-17 2026-08-27 Original Forgiving the Government: The Waning Effect of Citizen Grievances in China
Jinfeng Wu, Yongshun Cai
Abstract
Public grievances do not automatically translate into collective or even individual resistance, but pent-up grievances threaten governments because they may trigger regime-challenging actions when opportunities arise. This study examines to what extent public grievances against state authorities may become pent up. Using a longitudinal survey in China, this article finds that public grievances against local state authorities reduce citizens’ trust in the political system, but citizen grievances may not become pent up. Instead, these grievances tend to be individualized in the sense that they neither last for a long time nor diffuse in society. Individualized grievances reduce political pressure because they do not constitute threats to social stability. However, whether these grievances will last if citizens re-encounter similar conflicts warrants further research.
JOP 88/3 pp. 1048-1065 2026-07-01 Original Revisiting the Link Between Political Trust and Political Participation
Edmund Kelly, James Tilley, Sven Oskarsson
Abstract
Political trust is typically seen as a cause of political participation, and thus, declining levels of trust in politicians and institutions are often blamed for political disengagement. By revisiting the formation of political trust, we argue that this blame may be misplaced. We show that the correlation between political trust and participation is largely explained by heritable predispositions that make some people simultaneously more likely to trust political authorities and to participate in politics. Using variance decomposition models and co-twin control designs with data from three twin studies from the United States, Sweden, and Australia, we demonstrate that trust is moderately heritable and that previous estimates of the association between trust and participation are overstated. This result is robust to multiple operationalizations and specifications. We conclude that political trust may be less likely to affect political behavior than previously thought.
GOV 39/3 2026-06-19
Original How Centralization Benefits Public Provision and Local Political Trust: The Case of Taiwan
Matthew Yi‐Hsiu Lee