Trust in Local Government: Service Satisfaction, Culture, and Demography

• Author: Tom Christensen,Saizo Aoyagi,Kiyoshi Yamamoto
• DOI: 10.1177/0095399719897392
• Date: 01 September 2020
• Published date: 01 September 2020
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0095399719897392

Administration & Society

2020, Vol. 52(8) 1268 –1296

© The Author(s) 2019

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DOI: 10.1177/0095399719897392

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Article

Trust in Local

Government: Service

Satisfaction, Culture,

and Demography

Tom Christensen1, Kiyoshi Yamamoto2,

and Saizo Aoyagi3

Abstract

Trust in government is expected to promote effective implementation

of public services. However, people in different cultures and on different

levels do not always recognize the same concept of trust. Using a survey for

Japanese and Norwegian citizens, the primary factors determining trust on

the local level are examined. The analysis shows that the satisfaction with

public service performance is highly influential in both countries, which is

partly also true for political-cultural factors, while demographical factors

are of minor influence. There are also variations in trust toward different

institutions and actors, and the national factor is also significant.

Keywords

trust, local government, citizens, political and social activities, Japan, Norway

Introduction

Trust in government is a multifaceted and challenging concept. In indirect

democracies, people are delegating, through the “parliamentary chain”

1University of Oslo, Norway

2Kamakura Women’s University, Japan

3Toyo University, Tokyo, Japan

Corresponding Author:

Tom Christensen, University of Oslo, P.O. Box 1097 Blindern, 0317 Oslo, Norway.

Email: tom.christensen@stv.uio.no

897392AASXXX10.1177/0095399719897392Administration & SocietyChristensen et al.

research-article2019

Christensen et al. 1269

(Olsen, 1992), their sovereignty to political-administrative institutions and

actors. This delegation is based on trust in that this mandate will be handled

in an appropriate way, but the public should also have a “healthy distrust” and

skepticism toward this (van de Walle & Six, 2013). Institutional manifesta-

tion of this balance between trust and distrust is related to parliamentary scru-

tiny committees, auditor generals, ombudsmen, and so on, but also through

the media in what is more modern language is labeled “horizontal account-

ability” (Schillemans, 2008).

Easton (1965) made a seminal distinction between diffuse and specific

support for the political-administrative system. Diffuse supports deals with

the more long-term general and systemic factors of legitimacy and trust

accorded to the system, whether directed toward institutions or roles/actors,

while specific support focuses more on the specific experiences with the gov-

ernment and its services (van de Walle & Bouckaert, 2003). There is a

dynamic relationship between diffuse and specific support, legitimacy or

trust. Scoring high on diffuse support is indicating high “slack” in the system

(Cyert & March, 1963), something that can work as a buffer toward crises

and challenges toward legitimacy more in general. Or, on the contrary, low

specific support will often make it difficult for the political-administrative

leadership to build up a broad support basis among citizens. Marien and

Hooghe (2011) derive a hypothesis from Easton’s distinction that institu-

tional trust is more important than political trust (PT). We therefore have to

explore the structures of citizen’s trust in specific political actors, organiza-

tions, or institutions other than the government overall (Levi & Stoker, 2003).

Variations in trust in government may be explained by many factors. One

is the more instrumental or performance-oriented part, that is, the actual

working of the political-administrative system, for example, people evalua-

tions of the services that they are receiving (van de Walle & Bouckaert,

2003). Another set of factors is what one can label the political-cultural fac-

tors, like the more general views on democracy, ideological attitudes and

party-political attitudes, engagement in political activities, and so on (Ma and

Yang, 2014). A third is individual demographic factors like gender, age, edu-

cation, and so on (Christensen & Lægreid, 2009).

The focus of this article is trust in local government in two rather different

political-administrative systems, Japan and Norway. Our main methodologi-

cal point of departure is the so-called mixed method approach, proposed by

Frendreis (1983). The two countries are expected to differ both concerning

the dependent variable trust, with Norway supposedly scoring higher

(Christensen & Lægreid, 2005), but also concerning the most relevant inde-

pendent variables. Japan and Norway differ on basic structural and cultural

variables, such as that Japan is a rather traditional and hierarchical system,