Paul Killerby

Killerby, P. (2005) “'Trust me, I'm from the government': The complex relationship between trust in government and quality of governance”, Social Policy Journal of New Zealand, Issue 25, July 2005: 1-15.

Abstract

A comparative analysis of data for a sample of 45 countries illustrates that trust in government does not have a statistically significant correlation with any of a variety of other key policy objectives. The evidence suggests that trust in government is a poor indicator of the level of social trust in each country, its contribution to overall life satisfaction is at best indirect, and it is a poor indicator of quality of governance. Further research is recommended to clarify the value of trust in government and its relationship to other key policy objectives. This paper reinforces Wansbrough’s (2002) advice that trust in government is a complex concept. In particular, it observes that trust in government is a form of fiduciary trust between society and government (i.e. a principal-agent relationship), which is inherently different from mutual trust between people. The evidence illustrates that measured levels of trust in government are not the same as, or even necessarily indicative of, quality of governance.

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