Decentralization and citizen trust: An empirical study of policing in more and less developed countries

• Author: Grichawat Lowatcharin,Judith I. Stallmann
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/pa.1974
• Date: 01 February 2020
• Published date: 01 February 2020

ACADEMIC PAPER

Decentralization and citizen trust: An empirical study of

policing in more and less developed countries

Grichawat Lowatcharin

1

|Judith I. Stallmann

2

1

College of Local Administration, Khon Kaen

University, Khon Kaen, Thailand

2

Agricultural and Applied Economics, Rural

Sociology and Public Affairs, University of

Missouri, Columbia, Missouri, USA

Correspondence

Grichawat Lowatcharin, College of Local

Administration, Khon Kaen University, 123

Mittraphap Road, Khon Kaen 40002, Thailand.

Email: grichawat@kku.ac.th

Decentralization is argued to enhance citizen–government relationships and, thus, to

lead to higher levels of citizen trust. General purpose policing encompasses various

services that might be assigned to different levels of governments. The literature

lacks generalizable studies of the effects of the structural arrangements of police sys-

tems on police performance. This study is a cross‐national exploration of the relation-

ship between the varying degrees of police decentralization and police performance

as measured by citizen trust in the police. It uses a measure of decentralization of

police systems based on the tiers of government with some control over police.

Results show that, in the 72 sample countries, the relationship between citizen trust

in police and decentralized police systems is not statistically significant. However,

when the countries are categorized by the Human Development Index, decentralized

police systems tend to be positively related to citizen trust in the more developed

countries but inversely in the less developed countries.

1|INTRODUCTION

Citizen trust or public confidence in the police is an important

indicator, and a more inclusive measure, of police performance (Alda,

Bennett, & Morabito, 2017; Moore, 2002; Morris, 2014). Decentrali-

zation—that is, the transfer of authority, responsibility, and resources

for public service provision from the national government to subordi-

nate levels of government—is argued to enhance citizen–government

relationships and, thus, to lead to higher levels of citizen trust (Oates,

1972, 1977, 1999; Pollitt, 2005). Since the 1980s, international orga-

nizations, for example, the World Bank and the International Mone-

tary Fund, have played an important role in promoting and assisting

decentralization reforms, particularly in developing countries (Cheema

& Rondinelli, 2007). Decentralization proponents encourage central

governments to transfer responsibility to lower levels of governmental

for more efficient or effective service provision. However, the litera-

ture finds mixed effects of decentralization (Neudofer & Neudorfer,

2015; Rondinelli, Nellis, & Cheema, 1983; Smoke, 2001), and the dif-

ferences are especially pronounced between developed and develop-

ing countries (Mills, Vaughan, Smith, & Tabibzadeh, 1990; Shah,

2006a, 2006b).

A police system—that is, the formal structural arrangements of

public policing employed by a country—encompasses a wide range

of services, from stopping minor traffic offenses to suppressing inter-

national drug dealing networks that might be assigned to various

levels of governments. In a centralized or national police system, the

national government is responsible for all law enforcement. Examples

of countries that have a centralized police system are Ireland and Thai-

land. In a decentralized police system, responsibility for law enforce-

ment is shared by various levels of government with specific

assignments of duties and defined coordination, for example, the

Canadian and U.S. systems.

In 1992, Bayley noted that the study of effects of centralized

versus decentralized policing on police performance was in its

infancy; there were descriptive case studies but few comparative

studies. Specifically, he proposed that police institutional arrange-

ments should be added to statistical models as an independent vari-

able. Although there are now a number of cross‐national,

comparative works, most are descriptive in nature, provide normative

arguments, and/or are limited to two or a small set of countries (e.g.,

de Millard & Savage, 2012; Park & Johnstone, 2013; Reichel, 2013;

Reiss, 1995; Terrill, 2013).

Received: 22 April 2019 Accepted: 24 April 2019

DOI: 10.1002/pa.1974

J Public Affairs. 2020;20:e1974.

https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.1974

© 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/pa 1of13