The Trust Series, Part IV: Trust in Government

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) just released “Building Trust to Reinforce Democracy: Key Findings from the 2021 OECD Survey on Drivers of Trust in Public Institutions”. The report presents the main findings of a cross-national survey of trust in government and public institutions, representing over 50,000 responses across 22 OECD countries. Participating countries were: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Colombia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Iceland, Ireland, Japan, Korea, Latvia, Luxembourg, Mexico, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Across the 22 countries, an average of four out of ten respondents reported they trust their national government, as follows:

The US wasn’t included in the OECD survey, but we do have Gallup, which has been conducting “Trust in Government” surveys for decades (not counting the 1980s and early 1990s). Gallup divides the trust question into two parts: trust in the federal government’s handing of international problems and its handling of domestic problems. First, international problems*:

So basically a downward trend since the early, optimistic days of the war in Afghanistan, when 80% of respondents said they trusted the federal government’s handling of international problems. What about trust in the federal government’s handling of domestic problems?

Trust in the federal government’s handling of international and domestic problems exhibits the same trend and end point, from a high level of public trust during George W. Bush’s first term in office to just 40% of respondents trusting the federal government in 2021 - remarkably similar to the OECD survey response. That can’t be a coincidence but I have no idea why so many countries have converged in their level of trust.

So what would increase the public’s trust in government? Some tips from the OECD:

Recommended reading: Building Trust to Reinforce Democracy: Key Findings from the 2021 OECD Survey on Drivers of Trust in Public Institutions, OECD. Released July 13, 2022. https://www.oecd.org/governance/trust-in-government/

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* Gallup occasionally conducted more than one trust survey in a single year. My charts include only the first survey results in those years.