Political trust and social cohesion orientation in Hong Kong

Trust in political institutions and the orientation to social cohesion are integral ingredients of social cohesion. The orientation in turn comprises attaching to the place, maintaining equality or equalizing with other people, participating in activities, preserving social order, networking with other people, and agreeing with public opinion. According to the balanced view of social cohesion, political trust maintains a positive relationship with social cohesion orientation to realize cooperation between the polity and civil society. In contrast, the compartmentalized view of social cohesion posits that political trust has no relationship with social cohesion orientation, because of the independence between the polity and civil society. Addressing the relationship is the focus of the present study. This study employed telephone survey data from 936 Hong Kong Chinese people to identify political trust and social cohesion orientation using second-order confirmatory factor analysis. Results showed a weak positive relationship (r = .200) between institutional trust and social cohesion. Furthermore, use of mixture analysis differentiated two groups of people, one (41.4%) having no relationship between political trust and social cohesion orientation and another (58.6%) displaying a medium positive relationship between the two (r = .314). The concomitant component of the mixture analysis revealed that independence between political trust and social cohesive orientation was more likely in the case of younger age, male gender, not being married, and earlier survey time. These attributes tend to characterize a substantial portion of people who envision separation between the polity and civil society. © 2011 by Nova Science Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.