Lack Of Trust In Institutions Research Articles

Undocumented migrants in Saudi Arabia: COVID-19 and amnesty reforms.

During the COVID‐19 pandemic, Saudi Arabia's domestic public health institutions struggle to control the COVID19 virus's spread within undocumented migrant populations, endangering both local Saudi and migrant populations. As a result, Saudi Arabia implemented a temporary amnesty policy, granting state pardon to undocumented migrants to access to health care services. Using combined qualitative fieldwork data in 2008‐2009 and, more recently in 2020 among irregular Asian and African migrants' communities in Jeddah, I argue that the lack of institutional trust, combined with differential economic opportunities in Saudi and origin countries, significantly impacts undocumented migrants' decision to avoid health amnesty reform. This is particularly critical as it could likely disrupt government attempts at curbing COVID‐19 within migrant communities, thus posing serious health, economic, and security threats to the Saudi state. The study contributes to empirical and theoretical debates because it highlights migrant perception's role towards local institutions in Gulf's domestic migration policymaking.

Tech Latinas: Latin American Women for Technology

Aim/Purpose: The directors of Tech Latinas were happy with what they had created and the impact their company had made in Ecuador, Peru and Guatemala. Now that they had seen their vision come to fruition in ways that were astounding to them. They wanted to take the next steps in growing their business so Tech Latinas mission could spread beyond its current bounds. Before working out the logistics, the Tech Latina team expanded their vision. They wanted to scale Tech Latinas throughout Latin America. They hoped to find the best talent among the 37 million young women in these countries who were currently either unemployed or informally employed. They estimated that 1.2 million web developers in Latin America would be required that by 2025. Background: The entrepreneurial tech wave has hit Latin America hard, and it appears to be gaining momentum. A new generation of millennials and post-millennials, led by a group of early entrepreneurs in their late 30s to early 50s, believes that it can improve lives by creating new and better solutions to everyday problems. One such area is teaching coding and tech skills to women who live in middle to low-income Latin American households. Despite the advantages and opportunities, there are also great obstacles to make it all happen in Latin America. Some cultural and some systemic. Culturally, Latin Americans are very averse to risk, and most only invest in “secure” ventures such as real estate. The lack of financial education is a key factor that does not allow potential entrepreneurs to thrive. On the systemic side, corruption, lack of institutional trust and impunity are probably the biggest hurdles to surpass in the next few years. Companies need to think globally and compete against global competitors. Methodology: Data was collected through a qualitative approach with several in-depth interviews Contribution: In following trends of Latin American growth and development, the main opportunities will end up being in the technology sector as advances in education and know-how disseminate. The hope is that this knowledge gap will provide jobs for millions trying to lift themselves out of poverty. Findings: That nascent ventures in Latin America face different and unique challages. The ability to scale and the lack of capital that would invest in social causes is unfortunately scarce in the region. This makes it difficult to Recommendations for Practitioners: This case could be used for discussion around lessons from emerging market entrepreneurship. Many strategies of the struggles and triumphs of Latin American entrepreneurs are worth noting as practitioners due to the acute necessity-driven approach to many Latin American entrepreneurs toward venture success. Recommendation for Researchers: Maybe employing a scale of some sort to differentiate net impact socially and economically these tech educational training facilities Impact on Society: That there is a need to support organic entrepreneurial efforts in not only gaining returns but supporting social causes that lift societies. Also, it is a wise investment to invest in women and in emerging economies. Future Research: It would be interesting to further follow the Tech Latinas and other initiatives in this area of knowledge transfer and economic development. It would be interesting to do a study or a scale of results of impact between countries not only in Latin America but other women coding and IT training efforts around the world.

Desinformación y alfabetización mediática desde las instituciones: los decálogos contra las fake news

In an environment characterized by infoxication, the speed and immediacy of information circulation, the emotionality of the messages, the virality, the horizontality in the content production, and the lack of trust in institutions and media, we consider vital the role that institutions play through their institutional advertising to deal with misinformation. For this reason, our research aims to establish whether there is coherence between the institutional visual campaigns, about fake news during Covid-19 and the recommendations of national and international bodies, such as the European Commission, UNESCO and the WHO. Based on the importance that these organizations give to the contextualization and consequences of the problem, we analyzed a representative sample of 20 visual resources through content analysis and discursive analysis to assess whether the approach of these campaigns is appropiate. We also studied the virality of the information through an analysis of the content diffusion on Twitter. Our results indicated an insufficient number of posters and decalogues, along with their limitation in dealing with disinformation. First of all, we observed a lack of coordination in the framing of the problem, because despite the detection mechanisms (contrast, source analysis, medium) are specified, and the non-viralization / dissemination is urged, intentionality and repercussion are directly and indirectly ignored. A 60% of the analysed decalogues did not mention the consequences of disinformation, neither in the short nor in the long term. A 20% explains the economic or political benefit that could be obtained from the dissemination of a deception and 15% explains the possible damage to health or reputation. Only a 5% mention the polarisation of public opinion. The secondary effects of fake news that institutional advertising exposed were: the damage to the digital identity, discrimination against individuals, the advantage of unethical businesses, the reduction in media confidence, the decrease in critical thinking, and the undermining of the confidence of institutions that do not even appear in the decalogues. Secondly, we appreciated a restriction of the campaigns to the child and adolescent public, as well as to adults in the role of parents. Dissemination is also a pending task for the institutions, since none of the initiatives were successful and went viral on Twitter, even less so in the case of the campaigns that we consider more complete in their approach. The conclusions of this work invite to revisit the institutional communication and advertising as tools for media and digital literacy through coordination with the media, journalists, educators, politicians and experts in the field. Order PCM / 1030/2020, of October 30, which publishes the procedure for action against disinformation opens a new path to study information disorders in Spain. From this point, the objective should be to analyse it from a structural prism which empowers citizens, not to assign them total responsibility for how they receive information.

The Political Dimensions of Illegal Wolf Hunting: Anti‐Elitism, Lack of Trust in Institutions and Acceptance of Illegal Wolf Killing among Norwegian Hunters

AbstractQualitative studies have indicated that the illegal killing of wolves is often attributed a protest dimension. However, we have limited knowledge about the factors that impact this judgement. The present study investigates views on illegal wolf killing among Norwegian hunters and connects these views to background factors, hunting cultures, anti‐elitism and the legitimacy of environmental institutions, probing the existence of a ‘counterpublic’ where killing wolves is seen as justified resistance. Only a minority tolerated the activity, but compared to other hunting‐related offences, killing a wolf illegally was seen as ‘not serious’ by the largest group. Hunters with limited education, living in rural areas, and who were motivated by a ‘tradition and stewardship’ ethos when hunting, were more inclined to accept illegal killing. Anti‐elitism and lack of trust in environmental institutions were even stronger predictors. We conclude that hunting‐related issues are not among the prime drivers of support for illegal wolf hunting. Rather, it is typically part of a worldview that reflects a rural subaltern experience, comprising elements of cultural resistance. While the political dimension is not always articulated, overlooking it and treating illegal killing simply as ‘crime’ may stoke conflicts and fortify an understanding of power relations that already drives resistance.

Shades of Conflict in Kyrgyzstan: National Actor Perceptions and Behaviour in Mining

Confronted with advancing resource frontiers, local communities increasingly rely on conflict to re-establish order in the face of problematic interdependences brought about by mining transactions. This article captures the interactions at national level that engender these interdependences in the first place. We explore how national actor groups influence emerging regularities of behaviour in mining through the example of gold mining in Kyrgyzstan – a fragile resource-dependent country divided by mining conflicts. For the analysis of these emerging patterns of behaviour, we focus on shared beliefs and norms that in interaction with perceived dimensions of transactions provide motivation to act. The identified regularities of behaviour help differentiate the otherwise crude dichotomy of conflict and cooperation, pointing to shades of conflicts. Mining conflicts in Kyrgyzstan are driven by profound structural factors that are rooted in weak governance, lack of institutional trust and limited cooperation across national actor groups. Risks and costs are distributed to outgroups, threatening the local social-ecological systems and further fragmenting Kyrgyz society. If extraction continues in the current mode of governance, resource-based grievances are likely to persist in Kyrgyzstan, as mining will increasingly encroach on local ecosystems, livelihoods and cultural commons – unless the national perceptions and shared beliefs change.

Informality in the Western Balkans: a culture, a contextual rational choice, or both?

ABSTRACT Using data compiled during extensive survey research carried out in the societies of the Western Balkans, we attempt to contribute to the discussion on whether informality, which in this region is largely present even in formal settings, is a consequence of a specific culture brought about by particular historical circumstances – several centuries of Ottoman rule, delayed modernization, and the legacy of socialism – or whether it is a manifestation of a contextualized rational choice, embodied as a response to the transitional environment in which citizens live. Trying to contribute to these deliberations and create a new basis for the better understanding of these ‘informal ways of getting things done’, we operationalize two sets of indicators that speak in favour of one or the other standpoint. We apply Multiple Correspondence Analysis and regression methods, but the complexity of the analysis produced results that defy simple oppositions. However, we identified perceptions of the level of informality, lack of trust in institutions and readiness to justify informality as the strongest predictors of informal practices, with a non-linear relationship between the age of respondents and their involvement in informal practices, and a rather weak correlation with indicators of their economic, social and cultural capital.

The digital revolution – digital entrepreneurship and transformation in Beijing

ABSTRACTThis article explores digital entrepreneurship and the impact of digitalization on the entrepreneurial environment in Beijing. The empirical data are composed of 20 semi-structured interviews with Beijing-based entrepreneurs. The article applies institutional theory to explore the state sponsored push for entrepreneurship, innovation and digitalization, and how the entrepreneurs are experiencing transformed environments. The findings highlight that entrepreneurs experience a heightened societal trust and increased support, yet a lack of institutional trust. Government initiatives and digitalization are found to have rejuvenated entrepreneurship in China, providing greater opportunities for economic action, but dominant institutions need to further develop to ensure the growth of a successful and sustainable entrepreneurial environment. This article contributes to digital entrepreneurship literature by offering unique empirical evidence regarding how institutional environments (e.g. local contexts, regulatory and social forces) can influence and impact the emergence of private enterprise in China.

Barreiras para a Ampliação de Transparência na Administração Pública Brasileira: Questões Estruturais e Culturais ou Falta de Estratégia e Governança?

O processo de transparência dos governos para a sociedade utilizando informação com o objetivo de accountability é mais efetivo com as utilização de Tecnologias da Informação e Comunicação (TICs). As TICs tem sido usadas para fornecer serviços governamentais mais eficientes e, mais recentemente, como base para inciativas de Governança Digital, a qual vai além da oferta de serviços eletrônicos, envolvendo a participação do cidadão. O objetivo deste artigo é identificar barreiras para a adoção dos objetivos estratégicos relacionados à transparência de acordo com a Política de Governança Digital lançada recentemente pelo Governo Federal, Entrevistas semiestruturadas foram conduzidas com gestores de organizações públicas de um estado da federação. Um conjunto de 13 diferentes barreiras foi identificado, e as que tiveram maior número de ocorrência foram as institucionais, a qualidade da informação, complexidade da tarefas, falta de suporte político, resistência dos servidores públicos em usarem TICs e falta de confiança nas instituições.

Management preferences and attitudes regarding environmental impacts from seawater desalination: Insights from a small coastal community

The use of seawater desalination as a water supply option is increasing worldwide. Compared to other marine sectors, studies on marine users' perceptions and attitudes towards this new sector and its impacts on marine ecosystems are very limited. This study assessed differences in coastal stakeholder groups' preferences for managing marine impacts of a seawater desalination plant in a small coastal community. The majority of respondents placed high importance on the marine ecosystem, including ecosystem features that are less visible and charismatic, and were highly concerned about potential impacts on marine ecosystems and marine activities from the new desalination facility. Coastal residents further rated multiple management measures to reduce and off-set marine impacts as highly important, but indicated a lack of trust in institutions involved in regulating and managing environmental impacts. Logistic regression revealed that lack of institutional trust and concerns about marine impacts were significant predictors of opposition to the desalination facility and appeared to play a critical role in shaping local attitudes towards desalination. Findings further revealed that local opinions were primarily shaped by how respondents used the nearby marine system, and by gender. Age, education, and race did not seem to shape local opinions. At the same time, there were differences between consumptive and non-consumptive marine user groups' opinions indicating the potential for conflict regarding the most important management strategies.

Trust in national institutions and macroeconomic conditions

One of most important effects of the recent economic crisis has been the decline of citizens’trust in political institutions. This effect was due to the inability of national governments and Parliaments to counteract the consequences of the reces sion. The lack of trust in institutions involves costs that cannot be underestimated. Therefore, for this reason, it is very important to study the relationship between changes in macroeconomic conditions and changes in the level of citizens’appreciation in national institutions. The aim of the paper is to analyse as changes in macroeconomic conditions (in particular, changes in inflation, unemployment and income inequality) have affected the level of citizens’trust in national institutions of European countries in the period 2001-20013. Using panel data method, empirical results show that the increases in unemployment and income inequality contribute to reduce the level of trust in national institutions while, as regards inflation, the results are ambiguous.

Patriotic Education and Civic Culture of Youth in Russia: Sociological Perspective

High level of patriotic consciousness is supposed to be an important factor of civic consolidation and enhancement of competitive ability of Russia in geopolitical schedule. In the meantime, multinational character of Russian society, specifics of its territorial and administrative division, difference in political and socioeconomic situation of its regions challenge the existing system of patriotic education which no longer responses to modern social reality and doesn’t take into account peculiarities of mentality of modern youth. Today in Russian society there is an apparent need for development of ideas of active citizenship, initiative behavior and practical civic co-participation among youth.Evaluation of the patriotic education system was made in four border regions of Russia: Altaiskykrai, Krasnoyarskykrai, Omskaya oblast and Republic of Altai (n=2400, from 15 to 75 years). Indicators of evaluation included patriotic education definition, subjective perception of patriotic education efficiency, assessment of the role of different social institutions in patriotic education, obstacles and restrictions in youth policy. Our research showed that patriotic education in public conscience means not only evident inculcation of values such as love and respect for the country, but education in the whole, battle against drugs and alcohol, labor for the welfare of the state, care of people, military service, youth leisure organization. Besides the family as the main social institution responsible for youth socialization and upbringing, mass-media and Internet become the most important information resources, while political parties and civil society organizations don’t have a real weight, attributed them in governmental programs. The main causes, blocking patriotic feelings, are low standards of living, lack of institutional trust, social inequality and incertitude.

Latent entrepreneurship in transition economies

Because entrepreneurial activity can stimulate job creation and long-term economic growth, promoting entrepreneurship is an important goal. However, many financial, bureaucratic, and social barriers can short-circuit the process of actually starting a business, especially in transition economies that lack established institutional systems and markets. The main obstacles are underdeveloped financial markets, perceptions of administrative complexity, political and economic instability, and lack of trust in institutions. Gender disparities in the labor market are also reflected in less entrepreneurial activity among women than men.

Russian citizens' perceptions of corruption and trust of the police

Since 1991, Russian citizens' perception of the police has been consistently overwhelmingly negative. Both direct and vicarious citizen experiences with the police were examined to identify potential factors that may explain the pervasive and persistent negative perceptions. An original survey of citizens (N=509) was analysed with structural equation modelling techniques to determine how various forms of corruption (including bribery, unfair treatment and abuse of power), and social class standing influenced perceptions. Experiences with corruption had significant negative correlations with police trust. Trust was found to be independent of social class position. Bribery and abuse of power had significant co-variations with unfair treatment. Citizens actively avoid any police contact; therefore, their perceptions appear to be predominately influenced by a lack of institutional trust. The findings are consistent with the extant research.

Non-conventional/illegal political participation of male and female youths

Abstract Belgian data from the PIDOP project show that boys are more involved than girls in illegal political actions, namely the production of graffiti and other acts of “incivility”. These activities must be considered in both groups as complementary to conventional political and social participation and not as their opposite. The main explanatory factor is the level of the perceived efficaciousness of such actions. The lack of trust in institutions and the level of awareness of societal discrimination play no significant explanatory role. In males, the involvement level in these activities depends on feelings of personal discrimination and on the lack of freedom concerning individual choice, confirming the theory of societal vulnerability and Honneth’s theory of recognition. This level also increases along with increasing opportunities to make acquaintances and have fun in the neighbourhood. In females, this involvement is explained by the distance with regard to pro-sociality level.

Protesting and Justifying: A Latent Class Model for Contingent Valuation with Attitudinal Data

This article develops a latent class model for estimating willingness-to-pay (WTP) for public goods using simultaneously contingent valuation (CV) and attitudinal data to identify individuals with similar characteristics, such as WTP and protest attitudes. We find evidence that the answer to the CV question influences the responses to the attitudinal questions. In our case, this influence reflects rational behavior (budget constraint issues) and justification biases related to protest reasons, such as lack of trust in institutions or fairness issues with respect to the distribution of the burden of preservation. The results from our empirical application confirm the importance of accounting for those biases.

Protest Attitudes and Stated Preferences: Evidence on Scale Usage Heterogeneity

We contribute to the stated preference literature by addressing scale usage heterogeneity regarding how individuals answer attitudinal questions capturing lack of trust in institutions and fairness issues. Using a latent class model, we conduct a contingent valuation study to elicit the willingness-to-pay to preserve a recreational site. We find evidence that respondents within the same class, that is, with similar preferences and attitudes, interpret the Likert scale differently when answering the attitudinal questions. We identify different patterns of scale usage heterogeneity within and across classes and associate them with individual characteristics. Our approach contributes to better a understanding of individual behavior in the presence of protest attitudes.

What determines urban households’ willingness to pay for CO2 emission reductions in Turkey: A contingent valuation survey

This paper explores Turkish urban households’ willingness to pay (WTP) for CO2 emission reductions expected to result from improvements in power production. A face-to-face questionnaire, with a Contingent valuation (CV) module prepared using the double-bounded dichotomous choice elicitation framework, was administered to 2422 respondents representative of urban Turkey—a developing country with low but rapidly increasing greenhouse gas emissions. The determinants of WTP were identified by considering not only the impact of standard socio-economic factors but also the effects of environmental knowledge, attitudes and behaviour, the relevance of the identity of the collection agent (national versus international institutions) in terms of trust people have towards them, and the degree of perceived participation of others in the realization of the project. Our study confirms the existing literature in demonstrating that WTP figures reported by young and educated people that are active on environmental issues, and who also possess material security and environmental knowledge, are more likely to be high. However, their willingness to make contributions is hampered significantly by their belief that their fellow citizens will not contribute and the general lack of trust in institutions. Overall, this study may be taken as a call to eliminate governance-related uncertainties in climate change deals.

Políticas tutelares asimétricas: conciliando preferencias individuales y sociales en salud pública

Behavior is a major determinant of health, but changes in individual conduct are difficult, and health promotion lacks effectiveness. State intervention in the last century, rooted in the modernist movement, went far beyond dealing with externalities and built the framework of the welfare state. The crisis of the welfare state and post modernity after the 1970s led to a weakness of ideologies and values, narcissistic individualism, and lack of trust in institutions, all of which hampered the ability of society′s perspective to influence individual behavior. A review of health economics (especially merit goods) and public health (ethics and values of health promotion and prevention) may be useful to understand certain dilemmas in the balance between public intervention and individual autonomy. Given that many unhealthy decisions come from biased or irrational individual preferences, a promising new field in public health interventions is being developed, known as «asymmetric paternalism», or, more appropriately, as «asymmetric policies for merit-goods», which allow society to selectively influence those individuals whose decision biases lead to self-harming behavior, without constraining the autonomy of well informed autonomous individuals (even though their preferences may not coincide with society′s recommended preferences).

Institutional trust and alcohol consumption in Sweden: The Swedish National Public Health Survey 2006

BackgroundTrust as a measure of social capital has been documented to be associated with health. Mediating factors for this association are not well investigated. Harmful alcohol consumption is believed to be one of the mediating factors. We hypothesized that low social capital defined as low institutional trust is associated with harmful alcohol consumption.MethodsData from the 2006 Swedish National Survey of Public Health were used for analyses. The total study population comprised a randomly selected representative sample of 26.305 men and 30.584 women aged 16–84 years. Harmful alcohol consumption was measured using a short version the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT), developed and recommended by the World Health Organisation. Low institutional trust was defined based on trust in ten main welfare institutions in Sweden.ResultsIndependent of age, country of birth and socioeconomic circumstances, low institutional trust was associated with increased likelihood of harmful alcohol consumption (OR (men) = 1.52, 95% CI 1.34–1.70) and (OR (women) = 1.50, 95% CI 1.35–1.66). This association was marginally altered after adjustment for interpersonal trust.ConclusionFindings of the present study show that lack of trust in institutions is associated with increased likelihood of harmful alcohol consumption. We hope that findings in the present study will inspire similar studies in other contexts and contribute to more knowledge on the association between institutional trust and lifestyle patterns. This evidence may contribute to policies and strategies related to alcohol consumption.

Challenges in Colombia for public relations professionals: a qualitative assessment of the economic and political environments

Colombian public relations professionals face an environment shaped by a government-declared war against guerrillas, paramilitaries, and drug traffickers. Practitioners explained the implications of this conflict-laden environment for the practice of public relations during 10 in-depth, highly structured interviews. Findings include how regionalism has marked the evolution and practice in Colombia, the need for organizational representatives to keep a low profile because of security concerns, encroachment on the profession by other disciplines, and lack of trust in institutions due to the country's critical situation, demanding nation-building campaigns.