The impact of political entity on confidence in legal authorities: A comparison between China and Taiwan

The current study compared the public confidence in legal authorities in two different political entities: China and Taiwan. Data from the 2005 World Values Surveys were used, and the results from the ordinal logistic regression models indicated that the Chinese had significantly more confidence in their police and the courts than did the Taiwanese. The variable, nation, was found to be the strongest predictor of the levels of public confidence in legal authorities between China and Taiwan. In addition, interests in politics and a sense of anomie were two other significant predictors of the confidence. Those who were interested in politics showed a higher level of confidence in legal authorities whereas those suffered from anomie demonstrated a reduced level of confidence in both societies. It is concluded that public opinions must be understood within the broader entity contexts and data from an authoritarian state should only be used with caution.

Research Highlights
► This study found that it seems that the more authoritarian a country is like China, the more public support of the police as the survey results showed.
► The confidence in the police and the courts may be a reflection of the actual progress that a government has made in the process of democratization.
► In an authoritarian state like China, public opinion could be heavily influenced and manipulated by the government-controlled news media which is always selective in what residents are supposed to watch and read.
► Chinese and Taiwanese share one common predictor of the confidence in their legal authorities: interests in politics had an impact on confidence in the police as well in the courts in both countries.