What Does it Mean to Have ‘Trust in Government’ Today?
One of the issues on many governments’ agendas is to increase the public’s trust in government, institutions, and political leaders. Broadly, there is a sense that this trust has been decreasing over the past few decades in the wake of multiple scandals across Western democracies, reduced accountability of political leaders, increased apathy in participating in the political process, and decreased ability to constructively discuss political matters both within government and the public realm.
Trust is a complex expression of a variety of factors, sometimes composed of different factors or differently-weighted factors by each individual. It overlaps with how other dynamics are realised and perceived, such as legitimacy, honesty, transparency, fairness, equality, democracy and the ability to be and feel heard, and more.
Complex, intersecting challenges — for example, across climate, health, economy, migration, security, equality, and justice — have generated the need to rethink, reconfigure, and reinvent many elements how we live as individuals, and organise and govern societies including how different actors in society connect to each other. Just as we are examining many other elements, does the way we think about trust in government also need to adjust to the times we live in?
This piece explores the current status of trust in government, the role of perception and feelings in trust, how trust intersects with other dynamics, and then discusses how new societal dynamics may affect what it means to trust in government today.
Taking the temperature on trust in government
In 2021, the OECD conducted their first ‘Survey on the Drivers of Trust in Public Institutions’ (referred to as the ‘Trust Survey’), which takes the temperature of trust in government and public institutions across 22 OECD countries. In mid-2024, the results of a second edition of the Trust Survey will be released, this time covering 30 countries.
Here is a summary of some of the key findings of the first edition:
- On average, the public are evenly split on trusting their national government (41.4% do, 41.1% do not, the majority of the remaining are neutral and a small number don’t know).
- People also trust local government more than national government, although the difference was only 5.5% and both are trusted by less than half of people.
- The police, courts, and civil service have higher levels of public trust than national legislatures (congresses and parliament) and political parties.
- Generally, people have more trust in government if they believe information is open and transparent.
- On average, governments are significantly seen as not sufficiently allowing people to have a say in decision-making and there is little faith that opinions from public consultations would be adopted.
- Existing societal inequalities and a sense of not having a voice affected trust: the young, women, low-income, less educated, and financially insecure people consistently have less trust and lower satisfaction with government. For those interested in this, in 2022, Eurofound (the EU agency looking at living and working conditions) reported a similar demographic effect, specifically of a person’s ability to make ends meet affecting their trust in national institutions.
- Perception of integrity was poor: just under half on average believe that a high-level political official would grant a political favour for being offered a well-paid private sector job. Responses on integrity and corruption varied widely across countries and didn’t necessarily reflect real data (i.e. this was the perception but not necessarily the reality).
- There was low trust that governments will address long-term challenges. For example, only 35.5% believe countries will succeed in reducing their country’s contribution to climate change.
There are a lot of interesting results in this data but, put simply, in general, the public is not brimming with trust for governments. Some services were seen as relatively trustworthy but, overall, many elements struggled to get a trust majority (or much past a small majority).
This reflects on both the aims governments pursue (e.g. whether they are tackling challenges that matter to people) and the means they are using to pursue them structurally (e.g. how various public institutions are designed to work) and procedurally (e.g. whether the public has enough of a voice in decision making, and the methods various public institutions are using).
What is the reason for this? There are many factors at play but an interesting one is the role of perception in trust.
Trust involves both reality and perception of reality
When someone expresses whether or not they trust a government as a whole or an aspect of it and the services it provides, it can be difficult to know where that impression comes from. It could be about the reality of that government — if it is factually trustworthy or not based on objective evidence. Of course, sometimes governments or political leaders are not actually trustworthy. But it could also be about that individual’s perception; as in, whether they believe they are trustworthy or not, despite reality.
When a government is trustworthy yet not trusted…
There can be a few reasons for this. Firstly, an individual may have had a bad or ineffective experience with a government service, creating a strong negative opinion even if statistically they were the outlier.
However, there can also be more complex dynamics affecting perception, such as culture and identity. If they or others in their communities (currently or historically) have had negative experiences, this can affect their view of the current government, or governments and institutions in general. In some cases, when there is a large group consensus and new evidence that challenges what is seen as fact, this could go so far as to challenge whether a government or institution is actually “objectively” trustworthy at all; racial inequalities in policing are a strong example, gender inequalities in healthcare are another.
Furthermore, even if a government is objectively trustworthy and doing good work, it might just be terrible at making sure the public knows about it. Additionally, it can be a matter of what people derive trust from: even if a government is currently trustworthy, there may be the sense that the public wants stronger or different guardrails and accountability mechanisms for assurance that they can maintain their trust over time.
Although surveys like the OECD’s Trust Survey tell us a lot, it is impossible for them to dive into the basis that every participant is applying when they consider trust in government, and many of us may not have deeply considered the different dimensions and beliefs influencing our views.
Detangling trust as a feeling
A key message here is that, although I just used the word ‘objective’ multiple times, trust is always about feelings. Humans cannot separate feelings from facts, and often rational or irrational feelings about one element of government may distort views on another element.
A common example I have spoken about with local political representatives is when an individual contacts them with a complaint about a public service that the local level has no control over. Often, the local representative has to explain that they can’t help solve the problem and recommends the right person to contact. This doesn’t seem like it should erode trust but for some, it may have taken significant courage and effort to contact a representative (perhaps for the first time). Their simple and understandable misunderstanding of local governance may lead to them feeling unheard and like they have no control over decision making, or even that processes are designed to stop them from getting help. Quite often, they may not return to contact the right channel or raise other issues in the future. Feelings can override rationalities.
Emotional distortions can occur in other elements of politics. For example, when people support or vote for an electoral campaign or policy which objectively goes against their interests, yet is framed in a way that is appealing (e.g. to a part of their cultural identity) and does not focus on all implications. Or vice versa, when people do not support a policy they would benefit from because the wider messaging around it or the party presenting it makes them believe it isn’t ‘for them’.
This tells us that, although it is tempting for governments to focus on mechanisms and proving performance when trust is low, it is also important to consider how messaging and societal narratives affect perceived trustworthiness. Other approaches, such as dialogue, engagement, and participation initiatives may also help to build both better connections between the public and policy, and better perceptions as well.
How trust intersects with other dynamics
It is well understood that trust is not perceived in isolation, instead, as some of the examples above show, there are other things at play which affect it. This can include how much people feel heard and like they can affect decision making (democracy and participation), how open government is about the work they do and mistakes they make (honesty, transparency, integrity), how government treats different demographics (fairness, equality, justice), and more.
A good example is freedom, another quality which has broadly been in decline. Below is a trend map by Freedom House showing the change in freedom score between 2022–2023; although there are mixed results, there is a trend of many countries becoming ‘less free’. In brief, this score reflects many elements of democratic freedom including electoral, expression, media, political pluralism, and participation.
A country’s freedom is linked to how much people feel able to express viewpoints and affect how society functions and affects their lives; with low freedom, people likely don’t trust governments, institutions, and leaders.
Trust in an age of difficulties…
So far, we’ve mainly discussed some of the different factors which affect how trust in government can be seen. But how is this changing and how may this change the way we should consider trust in government?
Governments traditionally have been seen as stewards of both the present and the future — in general, their role is to provide good living conditions for people now but without lessening (and ideally increasing) the assets and ability of future generations to also live well.
However, governments have not effectively guarded the interests of the future — for example, failing to respond to climate change and, in fact, continuing to knowingly drive it forward. Simultaneously, they have insufficiently addressed the problems of today such as poverty and widening inequality, increasing polarisation, fewer opportunities for young people, injustices for different demographics, and more.
It is perhaps not surprising, then, that trust in government is low as governments have not fulfilled their traditional role. People do not feel their current interests are protected, nor are those of their children or future generations. This is only furthered by many recent examples of political leaders acting without integrity, government maladministration, and the increasing polarisation, negativity, and subjectivity of political discourse in the media.
Currently, we are facing many complex challenges which are difficult to solve and connected in nature. These range across areas including climate, health, economy, migration, security, equality, justice, and more. The challenging nature of these are being felt both in the present already, and the stakes for the future seem higher than ever.
Governments alone do not have the means or knowledge to single-handedly solve these challenges, changing what their role as stewards of the present and future can meaningfully look like. This, in turn, changes how the public can trust in this role.
What could ‘trust in government’ mean today?
Governments have never been omniscient but the scale of unknowns we face is greater than ever before; the complexity of challenges necessitates recognition that we do not have all of the answers. Instead, they must adopt a more flexible approach by openly admitting the gaps in knowledge, drawing knowledge from new and diverse sources across society, and using this to find new ideas on policy, regulation, collaboration, and more to test and learn from collectively. This is an active state of exploring, not governance for stasis or maintenance.
The implication this has for trust is significant. A government that admits it doesn’t know becomes a bit difficult to trust if we maintain that trust means we believe the government assures us of a good present and future. Instead, the public needs to understand the government as a ‘steward’ in a more literal way. Instead of asking governments to provide that positive present and future in exchange for our trust, we need to ask them to enable exploration towards it as a guide and leader of society.
Thus, trust in government should be earned through their ability to create the conditions for collective exploration (which is under their control) rather than the outcomes of a positive present and future (which is not solely under their control, but rather under society’s).
In the OECD Trust Survey, only 35.5% of respondents said that they believe countries will succeed in reducing their country’s contribution to climate change. We should see this as having low trust in all actors within society (including ourselves), not only governments even though they play a significant and unique role in societal organisation.
Trust is at the heart of a key paradox governments face today. An age of difficulties requires that the public trust government to help navigate society through it, but the new and complex nature of those difficulties makes trust much harder to give.
Instead of seeing this as all or nothing — that trust will fall until governments solve these challenges — governments could see this as an opportunity to shift their role in society and create new spaces and capabilities for exploration. This could be potentially a strong link between trust, legitimacy, transparency, participation, democracy, and addressing long-term challenges.
Decision makers understandably don’t want to make mistakes but we are in a time where that is inevitable. Instead, what matters is that mistakes are not so strongly linked to loss of trust and instead are seen, by both decision makers and the public, as part of a necessary process of learning and exploring how to create better ways of addressing challenges for the benefit of people now and in the future.
