Trust In Public Institutions Research Articles

Low support for nudging among Swedes in a population-representative sample

AbstractRecent surveys in China, South Korea, Brazil, South Africa, Russia, Australia, Italy, the UK, Canada, France, Germany, the USA, Japan, Hungary, and Denmark indicate that citizens generally are positive toward state nudging. However, less is known about differences in the support for nudging across socio-demographics and political party preferences, a research gap recently identified in the literature. This article investigates the relationship between the support for nudging and trust in public institutions through a population-representative survey in Sweden. It also analyzes differences in the support for nudging across political party preferences in two ideological dimensions: the economic left-right and cultural GAL-TAN spectra. Data were collected in December 2017 through a custom web survey, using Reisch and Sunstein's (2016) questionnaire. The respondents (N = 1032) were representative of the adult population with regard to gender, age, education, job sector, household income, living region, and political party preference. Sweden was found to belong to the cautiously pronudge nations (along with Japan, Hungary, and Denmark), contrary to hypotheses in previous research. Differences in the support for nudging were found along the economic left-right and GAL-TAN spectra. Individual nudges’ variation in support, polarization, and politicization are analyzed and discussed.

Determinants of institutional trust: the role of cultural context

AbstractWe examine the cultural context for individual's trust in public institutions. To shed some light on possible cultural explanations from a more comparative perspective and cover a wider set of cultural aspects, we use indicators of cultural dimensions by Kaasa et al. (2014) based on Hofstede's (1980) approach. Multilevel regression analysis is conducted with individual-level data from two waves of the European Social Survey (2008, 2010) and regional-level data from multiple sources. Confirmatory factor analysis is used to construct the indicators of social and institutional trust and corruption. Our results suggest that individuals tend to trust institutions less in regions with large power distance. Hence, an important key for governments being more successful in achieving their aims seems to be related to improving the sense of participation and civic responsibility.

Corruption and its Impact on Protest Activities in Post-communist Europe

Corruption is a phenomenon that affects societies. It lowers trust in public institutions, lowers trust among people, undermines economic development, undermines democracy, and has implications for political participation. This article contributes to current debates on the impact of corruption by looking at other possible consequences of corruption. Specifically, this article looks at the impact of the perception of corruption on the approval of public protest meetings and demonstrations because, if corruption leads to these non-institutionalized forms of political participation, this may lead to security problems or a direct outbreak of violence. This study analyses this relationship by using seven post-communist countries that have undergone specific developments in terms of corruption. These developments were largely due to large-scale privatizations, politicized state administration, and the linking of politicians to the private sector. This research was conducted with individual-level data. The module ‘The Role of Government V’ from the International Social Survey Programme was used. Descriptive charts have revealed that in six out of the seven countries, most respondents considered politicians to be very corrupt. Around 80% of respondents in all seven countries approve of the organization of public protest meetings. Around 70% of respondents in all seven countries approve of demonstrations. Regression analysis revealed that there is a relationship between the perception of corruption among politicians and the approval of protest activities. Specifically, the more politicians are corrupt, the more people approve of holding public protest meetings and demonstrations.

Cultural values predict national COVID-19 death rates

National responses to a pandemic require populations to comply through personal behaviors that occur in a cultural context. Here we show that aggregated cultural values of nations, derived from World Values Survey data, have been at least as important as top-down government actions in predicting the impact of COVID-19. At the population level, the cultural factor of cosmopolitanism, together with obesity, predict higher numbers of deaths in the first two months of COVID-19 on the scale of nations. At the state level, the complementary variables of government efficiency and public trust in institutions predict lower death numbers. The difference in effect between individual beliefs and behaviors, versus state-level actions, suggests that open cosmopolitan societies may face greater challenges in limiting a future pandemic or other event requiring a coordinated national response among the population. More generally, mass cultural values should be considered in crisis preparations.

How Has Romania’s Economic Development Been Affected by NATO and EU Accession? Costs Incurred in the Field of National Security for Meeting the Criteria Required by Partners

The present paper analyses the manner in which the implementation of the measures assumed by Romania during the pre-accession period (NATO and EU) has influenced Romania’s economic development in recent years. In this regard, the topic is approached from the point of view that the costs requested by “partners” and supported by Romania were justified by subsequent results (such as economic development, improved national security, institutional reforms or improving Romania’s external image). To this effect, a custom analysis is developed to assess the extent to which Romania’s integration processes into the Euro-Atlantic structures have affected the further economic development of the country in terms of costs for securing the Romanian state, with effects that can be witnessed to this day. In the research undertaken in this paper, the social, economic and political conditions existing in Romania and in the states in its immediate vicinity during the pre-accession period are also taken into account in order to highlight the positive effects generated by NATO and EU accession on all levels (especially economic and security/geopolitical). Thus, it is demonstrated that Romania, as a member of the North Atlantic Alliance and the European Union, acting in a security space based on common values, interests and objectives, on the principles and norms of democracy, the rule of law, and the market economy, has enjoyed favourable conditions for its accelerated economic and social development. From a security viewpoint, the terrorist actions/attacks carried out in recent years in European countries were not critical to Romania, but only aimed at the material destruction, political destabilization, and damage to European markets. However, the measures implemented by Romania are accompanied by a low level of trust in public institutions, meaning that all future actions of the Romanian state must take into account this vulnerability. At the same time, Romanian authorities need to understand that transparency and consultation with the public and partners are important in order to find the best ways to address threats and implement international measures.

Authoritarian values and institutional trust: Theoretical considerations and evidence from the Philippines

Studies on authoritarian values, which have mostly focused on authoritarian regimes and on democracies with spells of authoritarianism, suggest trust in public institutions. However, limited empirical evidence has been carried out in the Philippines where cycles of regime change and authoritarian leadership have characterized its post-authoritarian landscape. Examining multiple public opinion data from the Asian Barometer Survey, this study found that regardless of the political leadership across different regimes, Filipino citizens expressed attitudinal dispositions, i.e. conforming, anti-political pluralism, and support for strong leaders, that constitute authoritarian political values. But instead of a destabilizing effect, estimates from ordinary least squares indicate that Filipino citizens’ authoritarian tendencies enhance institutional trust—seen as an indicator of support for the political system. The findings of this study empirically challenge the view of democratization in the Philippines by foregrounding its ‘populist-authoritarian’ dimension. In addition, they provide evidence of a growing scholarship in comparative political studies that claims that courting confidence for political institutions and regime support does not necessitate a ‘liberal-democratic’ model.

Trust to Pay? Tax Morale and Trust in Africa

Although low tax morale hits developing countries hardest, little is known about its determinants in those countries. This paper examines the impact of trust in public institutions and the neighbourhood on individual tax morale in four African countries. First, the paper provides theoretical foundations of such a relationship. Further, the paper uses the World Value Survey to estimate the effects of trust in public institutions and the neighbourhood on individual tax morale. The identification strategy employs the instrumental variables method and relies on historical data on the slave trade and the literature on the cultural heritage of trust. The paper finds that trust in public institutions and the neighbourhood are associated with tax morale in Algeria, Ghana, Morocco, and Nigeria. The findings are robust to an alternative identification strategy, additional controls, and a falsification test.

Institutional Trust and Compliance with Measures to Fight COVID-19

The paper investigates the causal relationship between the trust in institutions and compliance with measures introduced to slow down the spread of the novel coronavirus COVID-19 in Slovakia. In addition, the impact of socio-economic characteristics on compliance with introduced measures was analysed. Data were obtained from a survey carried out by the Slovak Academy of Sciences on a representative sample of the Slovak population of 1,000 respondents. To derive the causal relationship between institutional trust and compliance behaviour, a probit regression model was used. Findings suggest that trust in public institutions helps to increase compliance with social distancing. In addition, some socio-economic characteristics such as employment status, age or whether individuals felt endangered by COVID-19 had a positive and statistically significant effect on compliance with measures used to slow the spread of the COVID-19 virus. Institutional trust did not have a statistically significant effect on compliance with face-covering measures.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11294-021-09818-3.

Psychological Responses to the COVID-19 Outbreak are Related to Trust in Public Institutions: Implications for Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases

Emerging pathogens, especially those related to infectious diseases require behavior change as well as engaging the population in participating in healthy behaviors. Psychological responses are thus of vital importance to disease prevention. While the stress of a pandemic has been associated to many psychological symptoms, these symptoms have not been systematically explored in a broader sociopolitical context. Psychological responses may be linked to the perceptions of health professionals and may also relate to trust in public institutions. As such, psychopathology is not only a consequence of stress associated with pandemics but rather, the result of an interplay of personal and sociopolitical contexts. This study showed that members of the general population are experiencing significant symptoms of psychological distress. Regression analyses showed that psychological distress was associated with negative attitudes towards healthcare professionals as well as distrust in public health authorities. This study is relevant because a lack of trust in health officials may impact the degree to which the population adheres to public health guidelines to prevent and manage COVID-19.

Government Data Openness and Coverage. How do They Affect Trust in European Countries?

Abstract Purpose This paper aims to assess if the extent of openness and the coverage of data sets released by European governments have a significant impact on citizen trust in public institutions. Design/methodology/approach Data for openness and coverage have been collected from the Open Data Inventory 2018 (ODIN), by Open Data Watch; institutional trust is built up as a formative construct based on the European Social Survey (ESS), Round 9. The relations between the open government data features and trust have been tested on the basis of structural equation modelling (SEM). Findings The paper reveals that as European governments improve data openness, disaggregation, and time coverage, people tend to trust them more. However, the size of the effect is still small and, comparatively, data coverage effect on citizens’ confidence is more than twice than the impact of openness. Research limitations This paper analyzes the causal effect of Open Government Data (OGD) features captured in a certain moment of time. In upcoming years, as OGD is implemented and a more consistent effect on people is expected, time series analysis will provide with a deeper insight. Practical implications Public officers should continue working in the development of a technological framework that contributes to make OGD truly open. They should improve the added value of the increasing amount of open data currently available in order to boost internal and external innovations valuable both for public agencies and citizens. Originality/value In a field of knowledge with little quantitative empirical evidence, this paper provides updated support for the positive effect of OGD strategies and it also points out areas of improvement in terms of the value that citizens can get from OGD coverage and openness.

Can open data increase younger generations' trust in democratic institutions? A study in the European Union.

Scholars and policy makers are giving increasing attention to how young people are involved in politics and their confidence in the current democratic system. In a context of a global trust crisis in the European Union, this paper examines if open government data, a promising governance strategy, may help to boost Millennials’ and Generation Z trust in public institutions and satisfaction with public outcomes. First, results from our preliminary analysis challenge some popular beliefs by revealing that younger generations tend to trust in their institutions notably more than the rest of the European citizens. In addition, our findings show that open government data is a trust-enabler for Millennials and Generation Z, not only through a direct link between both, but also thanks to the mediator role of citizens’ satisfaction. Accordingly, public officers are encouraged to spread the implementation of open data strategies as a way to improve younger generations’ attachment to democratic institutions.

Integrating Spatial and Ethnographic Methods for Resilience Research: A Thick Mapping Approach for Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico

Hurricane Maria left unprecedented impacts to communities in Puerto Rico, leaving some without infrastructure services and unable to communicate with family for several months. Toward understanding the forms of community-level resilience that enabled coping, recovery, and adaptation while hard infrastructure systems took time to regain functionality, this paper aims to (1) abductively illuminate the forms of social capital and adaptive capacity that emerged in Puerto Rico during and after Maria, (2) explore how physical variables manifest in community experiences, and (3) illustrate how quantitative and qualitative approaches for resilience assessments can be integrated given the nature of disasters as complex adaptive systems. We leverage a mapping approach by combining ethnographic and geospatial methods into an interactive GeoApp for analysis. A series of signifiers for resilience capacities were developed that are self-coded by participants who share anecdotes regarding Maria, and a series of geospatial indicators (e.g., social capital, elevation, electrical recovery) were layered and aggregated against ethnographic information as “thick maps”. The resulting geo-application facilitates quantitative and qualitative analysis of data at several scales, while enabling qualitative query of collected narratives. For example, it was found that trust in public institutions, local innovation, and community bonding and bridging were key themes for recovery. The multiplicity of mappings available through the application show how top-down assessments can be nuanced by thick data, and how multiple framings can be taken from the same system or place. These findings are important to inform and integrate community-oriented and technocentric solutions toward resilience enhancing measures.

The case for tracking misinformation the way we track disease

While public health organizations can detect disease spread, few can monitor and respond to real-time misinformation. Misinformation risks the public’s health, the credibility of institutions, and the safety of experts and front-line workers. Big Data, and specifically publicly available media data, can play a significant role in understanding and responding to misinformation. The Public Good Projects uses supervised machine learning to aggregate and code millions of conversations relating to vaccines and the COVID-19 pandemic broadly, in real-time. Public health researchers supervise this process daily, and provide insights to practitioners across a range of disciplines. Through this work, we have gleaned three lessons to address misinformation. (1) Sources of vaccine misinformation are known; there is a need to operationalize learnings and engage the pro-vaccination majority in debunking vaccine-related misinformation. (2) Existing systems can identify and track threats against health experts and institutions, which have been subject to unprecedented harassment. This supports their safety and helps prevent the further erosion of trust in public institutions. (3) Responses to misinformation should draw from cross-sector crisis management best practices and address coordination gaps. Real-time monitoring and addressing misinformation should be a core function of public health, and public health should be a core use case for data scientists developing monitoring tools. The tools to accomplish these tasks are available; it remains up to us to prioritize them.

Accountability and Trust in Government: What’s Next?

During the last four years the need for trustworthy leaders who possess both integrity and courage toaddress societal needs and inequities in the U.S. was highlighted, as has been the need for a trust-worthy government. A global pandemic and weakened economy have made it is highly unlikely that governments across the world will return to the old normal, but where do we go from here? Drawing upon the experience in U.S., I discuss what efforts are needed to rebuild accountability, trustworthy governments, and trust in public institutions across the globe. I discuss what the exercise of accountability involves, and describe how authentic evidence-building may support both accountability and trust-building. I also highlight some challenges and opportunities to build trustworthy government and increase trust in government.

Data privacy and political distrust: corporate ‘pro liars,’ ‘gridlocked Congress,’ and the Twitter issue public around the US privacy legislation

ABSTRACT This study explores how emerging US data privacy regulations are discussed at state and federal levels, examining Twitter discourse around Senate public hearings on data privacy and public forums on the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). The recent legal steps reflect growing public outcry over corporate data misuses and lack of appropriate legislation. The findings suggest that the issue public of Twitter users in this study largely considered corporations and the government as untrustworthy actors for privacy legislation. The political distrust was raising doubts over regulatory capture and if a future US federal privacy law will be weaker than state laws (e.g., CCPA) while overriding them. The study explores implications of the findings on the current deadlock over the state preemption clause in developing a comprehensive federal privacy law. I argue that the emerging regulatory efforts on data privacy may not be effective unless the public trust in institutions is regained in the US and that the continuing absence of a federal law amid the political distrust can leave people with limited individual privacy strategies as a result.

Risks of Social Communications of Public Administrative Bodies with Regard to Manifestations of Corruption

The article has analyzed reasons and the current state of corruption risks in the system of social communications of public administrative bodies. The aim of the study is to identify and analyze corruption risks in the system of public communication to eliminate the causes and terms of their emerging. The article is of an overview nature, and it is prepared based on the approach of the content analysis of scientific literature on the topic, analytical reports of international organizations, international projects, the authors’ analysis of sites and information portals of public authorities, and vectors of public information policy. A significant potential of corruption to destroy the trust in public institutions has been emphasized. This process will tend to weaken the state’s ability to fight against corruption. By using the methodological approach “agent – patron” (agent’s dilemma), it has been proved that a substantial increase in corruption processes causes considerable changes in the institutional design of public organizations. It is transforming the nature of the entire public administration system in the direction far from the public interest. This state of affairs demands the scientific community to develop theoretical and practical works offering a modern approach to the problem of countering corruption and, in particular, its institutional forms and mechanisms. The dynamics of corruption connections and relations distort the institutional design in the system of public administration, destroying effective social communications, decreasing a general level of citizens’ trust in power structures, contributing to the concentration of financial and economic assets in a very limited part of the society. The developed e-government has a great potential for countering corruption threats in general, provided the high level of information and communication competency of public authorities, and the developed information competency of citizens. Generalization of the work will be useful for public authorities during implementation processes of the comprehensive system of activities directed at prevention and fighting against corruption and planning while anti-corruption reform implementation, delivery of legal, social, economic, organizational, managerial, and practical activities aiming at corruption prevention through improvement and the further development of social communication in the public sector.

All trust is local: Sustainable development, trust in government and legitimacy in northern mining projects

Gaining and maintaining legitimacy serves as one of the central goals for public officials for the sake of efficacy. Operating in a legitimacy deficit raises both political and economic costs as citizens lose trust in public institutions and processes hit delays and policy is ignored. For administrators tasked with resource extraction, strong incentives exist to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their activities. To do this, understanding the citizens directly affected by resource development – their values and beliefs on sustainability – aids government in accomplishing its goals with lower costs. The greater the congruence between government and citizens perspectives, the greater the legitimacy. Norrbotten and Västerbotten, Sweden and Saskatchewan, Canada serve as the two cases in this paper. Both jurisdictions have established mining operations and, in the international context, strong regulatory frameworks. Further, during the mineral price boom, both regions saw increased foreign investment and new mine applications. Using survey data that focused on the perspective and values of residents living near potential mining operations, we look at the connection between trust in government and the acceptability of mining. Our findings indicate that trust in government holds the potential to overcome differences in values on sustainability; important for the on-going contentious debates on resource development.

A qualitative study of big data and the opioid epidemic: recommendations for data governance

BackgroundThe opioid epidemic has enabled rapid and unsurpassed use of big data on people with opioid use disorder to design initiatives to battle the public health crisis, generally without adequate input from impacted communities. Efforts informed by big data are saving lives, yielding significant benefits. Uses of big data may also undermine public trust in government and cause other unintended harms.ObjectivesWe aimed to identify concerns and recommendations regarding how to use big data on opioid use in ethical ways.MethodsWe conducted focus groups and interviews in 2019 with 39 big data stakeholders (gatekeepers, researchers, patient advocates) who had interest in or knowledge of the Public Health Data Warehouse maintained by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health.ResultsConcerns regarding big data on opioid use are rooted in potential privacy infringements due to linkage of previously distinct data systems, increased profiling and surveillance capabilities, limitless lifespan, and lack of explicit informed consent. Also problematic is the inability of affected groups to control how big data are used, the potential of big data to increase stigmatization and discrimination of those affected despite data anonymization, and uses that ignore or perpetuate biases. Participants support big data processes that protect and respect patients and society, ensure justice, and foster patient and public trust in public institutions. Recommendations for ethical big data governance offer ways to narrow the big data divide (e.g., prioritize health equity, set off-limits topics/methods, recognize blind spots), enact shared data governance (e.g., establish community advisory boards), cultivate public trust and earn social license for big data uses (e.g., institute safeguards and other stewardship responsibilities, engage the public, communicate the greater good), and refocus ethical approaches.ConclusionsUsing big data to address the opioid epidemic poses ethical concerns which, if unaddressed, may undermine its benefits. Findings can inform guidelines on how to conduct ethical big data governance and in ways that protect and respect patients and society, ensure justice, and foster patient and public trust in public institutions.

Analysis of University Students' Generalized Trust on Public Institutions

Generalized trust is the most common and natural concept. It plays an important role in society. It depends on the performance of public institutions. Generalized trust in public institutions creates a positive environment in society. The major purpose of the current study was to analyze the generalized trust of university students in public institutions. 600 students were randomly selected as a sample from four public universities of Punjab. The questionnaire was used to collect the data. The questionnaire demonstrated Cronbach Alpha Coefficients of more than .70. Findings revealed that generalized trust of students was higher on the military institution, but overall, students showed distrust in these institutions such as police, parliament. Results also showed that fighting terrorism, corruption, political pressure, poverty, lack of education are major problems faced by public institutions.

The Anxious and the Climbers: Ambivalent Attitudes towards Democracy among South Africa’s Middle Class

Albeit middle-class citizens have generally been assumed to support democracy, studies investigating this class’s political attitudes using survey data have produced mixed results. This paper argues that one reason for these ambiguities is that the middle class may not be a homogenous group. Specifically, I explore how diverging perceptions of social mobility tend to condition political attitudes towards democracy within different social strata, particularly within the middle class. Drawing upon data from the South African Social Attitudes Survey, the article finds no strong evidence of any middle-class particularism in people’s opinions about democracy. Rather, the main difference in democratic attitudes and civic values is detected between those persistently locked in poverty and the rest of the population. Interestingly, the upwardly mobile ‘escapers’ and the ‘climbers’ show significantly higher levels of trust in public institutions and tend to display higher beliefs in voting as an effective tool to influence politics compared to both the persistently poor and the ‘anxious’ middle class, between whom no significant difference is found. These empirical findings demonstrate the limits to understanding people’s political attitudes in relation to their current standard of living alone.