Citizen Trust and Local Government Performance in Botswana

Introduction: The Evolving Meaning of Trust in Government

The meaning and content of trust have kept changing because of shifting points of reference. Trust in government once referred to the belief that the government would not become autocratic (Bouckaert & Van de Walle, 2003). It currently refers to more immediate concerns such as the reliability of service delivery or the expectation that policy will correspond to an individual's wishes (Hofstede, 1980). Factors that determine trust in a government are not universal (Light & Labiner, 2001). Political systems with impeccable public services do not need to rely on evaluations of public service alone to determine citizens' trust in government.

Trust, Performance, and Citizen Expectations

Trust is closely related to performance. Citizens tend to distrust governments that underperform. An anti-government climate and negative images of bureaucrats are indicators that a government may not be performing well. To reverse declining trust, government institutions have integrated new public management and new public service approaches into their structures. There is a widespread assumption that better performance leads to greater trust.

Bouckaert et al. (2001) have addressed the link between trust and performance, using macro- and micro-performance theory to explain this relationship. Newton and Norris (2000) engaged in studies that link trust to changes in the quality or perception of government service delivery. Citizens have different expectations about how large government should be and what kinds of services it should provide. Huseby (2000) argues that the actual level of performance does not matter as much as the gap between expectations and performance. Miller and Borelli posit that public confidence in government is influenced by subjective measures, or citizens' perceptions. Government performance is produced collectively by a number of agencies, and some agencies may feature more prominently in citizens' image of government. Sims (2001) points out that performance is not the only criterion citizens use to evaluate government.

Measuring Performance and Satisfaction in Government

Bouckaert and Van de Walle (2003) argue that public administration has historically relied on hard indicators such as resources and outputs to measure performance. Because of increased attention to accountability and a growing focus on impacts and outcomes, soft indicators — such as citizen and user satisfaction — are increasingly being used to measure performance (Bouckaert & Van de Walle, 2003). Politicians, journalists, and citizens have grown concerned about the declining level of trust in government. This has significantly affected the image of government and, subsequently, the cohesion of society at large.

Citizens are increasingly associating good governance with greater trust and greater satisfaction with the way government delivers its services. Bouckaert and Van de Walle (2003) argue that improving the quality of governance will cause citizens to trust government more and feel more satisfied. The authors are emphatic, however, that current attempts to measure trust and satisfaction in government are misleading because satisfaction is inherently difficult to measure and is highly service-specific (Stipak, 1979). Trust in government may be easier to measure, but its relationship to good governance remains far from clear (Poister & Henry, 1994). Even if trust in government could be reliably measured, it is not certain whether changes in the level of trust are actually driven by government-related factors. Bouckaert and Van de Walle therefore advance the hypothesis that trust may be insufficient on its own, yet remains an integral component of a set of indicators that are, collectively, sufficient for good governance.