Trust in the public sector : is there any evidence for a long-term decline?
By: Van de Walle, Steven
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Contributor(s): VAN ROOSBROEK, Steven | Bouckaert, Geert.
Material type: 
ArticlePublisher: London, UK : Sage Publications, March 2008International Review of Administrative Sciences 74, 1, p. 47-64Abstract: Concerns with declining public trust in government have become a permanent element of the contemporary political discourse. This concern also extends to levels of citizens' trust in the public administration and public services. Trust is said to be declining, and this decline is generally seen as detrimental to public service delivery. In this article, we examine the main elements in this discussion, review the existing international survey data and summarize the main findings for Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. Citizens' trust in the public sector is found to fluctuate, and the data generally do not show consistently declining levels of trust. Furthermore, in some countries there simply are insufficient data to come to any conclusions at all about time trends in citizen trust in the public sector
Concerns with declining public trust in government have become a permanent element of the contemporary political discourse. This concern also extends to levels of citizens' trust in the public administration and public services. Trust is said to be declining, and this decline is generally seen as detrimental to public service delivery. In this article, we examine the main elements in this discussion, review the existing international survey data and summarize the main findings for Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. Citizens' trust in the public sector is found to fluctuate, and the data generally do not show consistently declining levels of trust. Furthermore, in some countries there simply are insufficient data to come to any conclusions at all about time trends in citizen trust in the public sector
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