Political trust under shifting state–society relations: citizenship and political efficacy of Hong Kong in the early 2020s

This article investigates two questions. Conceptually, it examines the formation of political trust amid expanding state power over a chilling civil society. This question echoes to the persistent scholarly concerns over the retreats of democratic institutions and practices under both liberal and authoritative contexts. Empirically, this article addresses an intriguing finding deriving from two populational surveys of Hong Kong in 2020 and 2024. Despite advancing state power over local civil society since the enactment of the National Security Law (NSL) in mid-2020, the political trust of people to the state authorities increased in early 2020s. Regression analyses of survey data exhibit that dutiful citizenship, which embodies a normative sense of civic duties and responsibilities; and external efficacy, reflecting a belief in the effectiveness of political and social systems, explained the increment of political trust. Further scrutiny, however, unravels that collective efficacy, which represents citizens’ belief in the influence of collective actions on political outcomes, negatively mediated the positive relationship between dutiful citizenship and political trust in 2020, but not in 2024. The findings illustrate how a muted civil society under rising state power affects the formation of political trust.