Bureaucratic characteristics and citizen trust in civil service in OECD member nations

Abstract

Do various bureaucratic characteristics explain different levels of public trust in civil service? While studies have suggested various desirable traits for public administration in democratic societies, including political responsiveness, representativeness, and professionalism, their possible linkages to public evaluations of government bureaucracies are insufficiently investigated. This article examines how such attributes are related to citizens’ evaluations of civil service using a multilevel analysis across 18 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) member nations. The bureaucratic characteristics are measured using data from the Quality of Government (QoG) Expert Survey and the OECD statistics. The survey data from the 2004 International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) are used to capture individual perceptions of public administration. The empirical results show that levels of citizens’ trust in bureaucracies is higher when an impartial and gender representative public administration exists. The findings contribute to our understanding of the correlates of public trust in government agencies, as well as consequences of emphasizing different bureaucratic traits across nations.