Measuring political trust : recognising the drivers of trust in public institutions

Abstract

Citizens’ trust is fundamental to the proper functioning of public institutions. This paper explores how the construct of ‘political trust’ can be measured to reflect the underlying theoretical factors driving trust levels. It proposes a quantitative methodology to develop a scale that measures trust in public regulatory institutions. Some measurements of trust are dependent on a scale for questions such as ‘What is your level of trust in...?’ Alternatively, composite indicators are used, based on, for example, trust levels in a set of public institutions. Such measures do not recognise what influences a citizen’s trust. The methodology presented here is also a composite measure but incorporates nine drivers and their extent of influence on a citizen’s trust. These drivers, identified through a literature review on political trust, include consistency, transparency, outcomes, competence, integrity, openness and inclusiveness, fairness, reliability and responsiveness. The proposed methodology follows four steps: (i) It determines drivers that citizens recognise as influential on their trust in a regulatory institution; (ii) it establishes the extent to which the drivers are influential; (iii) the institution is rated on a scale for each factor; and (iv) each factor rating is weighted on the extent of its influence and a weighted average is computed todetermine the level of trust. This methodology was applied to measure trust in Malta’s environmental authorities following a demerger. A survey was conducted with the questionnaire’s design reflecting this methodology. The empirical findings confirmed that all these factors lead to trust, but variations in the extent to which each driver influences a citizen’s trustexist. Responsiveness, outcomes, integrity and openness emerged as slightly less influential on citizens’ trust, whereas fairness, consistency, reliability, transparency and competence were the most influential factors. Significant differences are recorded when comparing methods of measuring trust for the two institutions. This composite measure recognises the multidimensional nature of trust, is grounded in the construct’s theoretical foundations and provides reasons for variations in trust levels. Institutions can adopt this approach as a tool to regularly monitor citizens’ trust and identify areas requiring attention.