Trust, corruption, and compliance with regulations: Attitudes to rule violations in the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park

Abstract

AbstractObjectiveWhile trust is proposed as a key concept to understand people's compliance in natural resource governance, research would benefit from being more precise. Our aim is to test whether more specific survey measures of people's tendency to violate rules and the degree to which law enforcing rangers are seen as corrupt trumps more commonly used items on intra‐personal trust and trust in institutions.MethodsWe analyze an original survey of residents within the boundaries of the Great Limpopo Park, straddling Mozambique, South Africa, and Zimbabwe.ResultsWhile general trust items predict compliance intentions in a first model, these effects largely disappear when we introduce more specific measures. We find consistent negative effects from perceived corruption among rangers. We also report negative effects from perceptions of other people's noncompliant behavior.ConclusionCompliance to natural resource regulations hinges on specific perceptions of how rule enforcing agents and other resource users act.