Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

In crises, government trust plays a key role in maintaining social stability. Abundant research has discussed the government performance during crises and post-crisis that influence government trust. Nevertheless, the concern on how routine government behaviors during non-crisis time impact government trust has not been analyzed with clear empirical evidence. Furthermore, limited research performs comparative analysis on which routine communication strategies, propaganda or responding, can better improve government trust during terrorism crises.

To answer the research questions, survey data collected in X region, China, which has suffered terrorist attacks, are examined. The result shows that in crisis situations, the better responding goes in daily administration, the more trust the government will get, and the propaganda has no significant impacts. Specifically, the result is robust according to the checks. The policy implications of this research include that in order to effectively improve government trust in crisis, government should build more channels for the citizens to appeal their requests and get response as soon as possible.