Institutional trust is an essential indicator in the governance mechanism involving citizens’ confidence in public institutions. The article main goal is to shed light on the theoretical insights into the field of trust in public institutions and what determines the degree of citizen trust in public institutions in Bangladesh. Methodologically, the article is a content analysis involving a literature review of vast secondary materials on books, journals, and websites regarding institutional trust which has been used, interpreted, and reinterpreted to validate the arguments. The article presents an analysis that cultural variables have the strongest overall effect on variations in citizens’ trust in public institutions in Bangladesh than institutional or performance variables. Social capital and authoritarianism tend to override the service satisfaction and quality of government variables in determining the trust level in public institutions in Bangladesh.
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