Trust and Credibility in Governing China’s Risk Society

C hina's modernization process is characterized by techno- logical advancement, profit-oriented economic development, a consumer society, and global integration.But this modernization process comes together with severe environmental risks.Accompanied by an average annual GDP growth of 10% from 1978 to 2011, China has witnessed an ongoing stream of chemical spills, algal blooms, blood lead accidents, oil spills, food poisonings, flash floods, and sandstorms over the last decades.Over 33 000 environmental accidents were counted between 1991 and 2010. 1 As such China can be characterized as a risk society, and environmental risks are very visible in China's risk profile.Despite accelerating efforts by governmental environmental agencies at national and local levels to manage these risks, the situation has hardly improved since the mid 1990s. 2 This perseverance of environmental risks and accidents and the widely perceived incapability of the Chinese government to effectively address these risks and accidents have contributed to an increased lack of trust and credibility in environmental authorities among the Chinese public.This lack of trust and credibility is noticeable beyond the area of environmental risks, and seems to have become a general phenomenon in contemporary Chinese society.Credibility and trust have become widely discussed among the public recently as governments are accused to have failed in coping with increasing fraud, fake products, improper academic behavior, illegal land transactions and pollutions, and disfunctioning civil services. 3A survey on "credibility of Chinese people" showed that the aggregate credibility index has remained stable at a low level. 4And many of the more than 180 000 annual "mass