Political Trust and Governance Dynamics in Authoritarian Regimes

Political trust in authoritarian regimes underpins both the perceived legitimacy of governing authorities and the stability of their rule. Unlike democracies, where electoral competition and pluralism condition accountability, authoritarian governments often rely on performance-based legitimacy, social control mechanisms and managed public opinion to secure compliance. Trust is shaped by a complex interplay of institutional performance, coercive surveillance and citizens’ own perceptions of risk and security. Digital communication technologies both challenge and reinforce top-down narratives: while the Internet can expose state shortcomings, it can also be harnessed to disseminate official messages and monitor dissent. Self-censorship emerges when individuals withhold their genuine views, leading to a façade of regime support that may hide latent grievances. Meanwhile, implicit forms of trust—automatic, non-verbalised orientations towards authority—can diverge from explicit survey responses, revealing deeper currents of regime support. Governance dynamics in such contexts extend beyond policing and propaganda to encompass selective social policies, crisis management strategies and calibrated repression, all of which feed back into citizens’ willingness to cooperate or resist. Understanding these dynamics carries global significance, informing policy design in areas as diverse as public health responses in intra-state crises and the diffusion of surveillance technologies across regions.

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Political Trust and Governance Dynamics in Authoritarian Regimes publication trend

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Technical terms

Political trust: Citizens’ confidence in the competence and intentions of governing institutions and officials.

Self-censorship: Withholding true opinions by individuals in response to anticipated repression or social norms.

Implicit political trust: Automatic, intuitive orientation toward government measured without direct self-report.

Authoritarian regime: Political system concentrating power in a single authority with limited pluralism and restricted civil liberties.

References

1. The Impact of Internet Use on Citizens’ Trust in Government: The Mediating Role of Sense of Security. Systems (2023).
2. The autocratic bias: self-censorship of regime support. Democratization (2021).
3. In Government We Trust: Implicit Political Trust and Regime Support in China. Perspectives on Politics (2022).