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ABSTRACT
Political distrust is often widespread in African countries, but the prospects for increasing trust are uncertain given the lack of research on the origins of political trust in the region. Using the 2013 NSS Survey in Ghana and employing hierarchical regression analyses, we develop a model of institutional trust based on insights from both cultural and institutional performance theories. The results clearly support the superiority of institutional performance theories while at the same time providing limited support for cultural explanations. National pride, however, does also substantially encourage institutional trust. This asks for future, cultural-specific studies on trust-building in developing countries trying to establish working institutions using more representative, cross-national, and longitudinal data.
Acknowledgements
We would also like to thank Tobi Oshodi and Maarten Schroyens for their help in the implementation of the NSS survey in Ghana.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1 Putnam, Leonardi, and Nanetti, Making Democracy Work; Mill, Considerations on Representative Government.
2 Wong, Wan, and Hsiao, “The Bases of Political Trust in Six Asian Societies.”
3 Mill, Considerations on Representative Government; Berg and Hjerm, “National Identity and Political Trust.”
4 Abramson, “Political Efficacy and Political Trust among Black Schoolchildren”; Hutchison and Johnson, “Capacity to Trust?”; Mishler and Rose, “Trust, Distrust and Skepticism.”
5 Delhey, Newton, and Welzel, “How General is Trust in ‘Most People’?”; Norris, “Making Democracies Work.”
6 Gyimah-Boadi, “Another Step Forward for Ghana,” 138.
7 Langer et al., “Can Student Populations in Developing Countries Be Reached by Online Surveys?”
8 Mill, Considerations on Representative Government.
9 Berg and Hjerm, “National Identity and Political Trust,” 391.
10 Easton, A Framework for Political Analysis.
11 Levi and Stoker, “Political Trust and Trustworthiness”; O’Neill, “What We Don’t Understand about Trust”; O’Neill, “Trust, Trustworthiness and Transparency.”
12 Levi and Stoker, “Political Trust and Trustworthiness.”
13 Gamson, Power and Discontent, 42.
14 Hetherington, “The Political Relevance of Political Trust,” 792.
15 Mishler and Rose, “What Are the Origins of Political Trust?”
16 Catterberg and Moreno, “The Individual Bases of Political Trust”; Mishler and Rose, “Trust, Distrust and Skepticism”; Mishler and Rose, “What are the Origins of Political Trust?”
17 Gamson, Power and Discontent; Mishler and Rose, “Trust, Distrust and Skepticism,” 419; Norris, “Introduction,” 16.
18 Mill, Considerations on Representative Government; Löden, “Citizenship Education, National Identity and Political Trust”; Berg and Hjerm, “National Identity and Political Trust.”
19 Easton, “A Re-assessment of the Concept of Political Support,” 176.
20 Hjerm, “National Identity”; Mill, Considerations on Representative Government; Berg and Hjerm, “National Identity and Political Trust.”
21 Mill, Considerations on Representative Government.
22 Putnam, Leonardi, and Nanetti, Making Democracy Work.
23 Ibid.; Putnam, “Bowling Alone”; Mishler and Rose, “What are the Origins of Political Trust?”
24 Mishler and Rose, “Trust, Distrust and Skepticism.”
25 Newton, “Trust, Social Capital, Civil Society, and Democracy,” 205.
26 See for example: Citrin, “Comment”; Miller, “Political Issues and Trust in Government: 1964–1970”; Williams, “Systemic Influences on Political Trust”; Mishler and Rose, “Trust, Distrust and Skepticism”; Mishler and Rose, “What are the Origins of Political Trust?”; Hutchison and Johnson, “Capacity to Trust?”
27 Huseby, “Government Performance and Political Support.”
28 Mishler and Rose, “What Are the Origins of Political Trust?”
29 Ibid.; Miller, “Political Issues and Trust in Government: 1964–1970.”
30 Berg and Hjerm, “National Identity and Political Trust.”
31 Catterberg and Moreno, “The Individual Bases of Political Trust.”
32 Hutchison and Johnson, “Capacity to Trust?”
33 Mishler and Rose, “What Are the Origins of Political Trust?”; Kaase, “Interpersonal Trust, Political Trust and Non-institutionalised Political Participation in Western Europe.”
34 Newton, “Social and Political Trust in Established Democracies”; Newton, “Trust, Social Capital, Civil Society, and Democracy”; Newton, “Social Trust and Political Disaffection.”
35 Putnam, Leonardi, and Nanetti, Making Democracy Work; Putnam, “Bowling Alone.”
36 Christensen and Lægreid, “Trust in Government”; Schoon and Cheng, “Determinants of Political Trust.”
37 Döring, “Higher Education and Confidence in Institutions.”
38 Newton, “Trust, Social Capital, Civil Society, and Democracy”; Newton and Norris, “Confidence in Public Institutions.”
39 Delhey and Newton, “Predicting Cross-national Levels of Social Trust”; Anderson and Paskeviciute, “How Ethnic and Linguistic Heterogeneity Influence the Prospects for Civil Society”; Uslaner, “Segregation and Mistrust.”
40 Kuenzi, “Social Capital and Political Trust in West Africa.”
41 Delhey, Newton, and Welzel, “How General is Trust in ‘Most People’?”; Catterberg and Moreno, “The Individual Bases of Political Trust”; Inglehart and Welzel, “Changing Mass Priorities”; Norris, “Making Democracies Work.”
42 Hutchison and Johnson, “Capacity to Trust?”; Mishler and Rose, “Trust, Distrust and Skepticism.”
43 Miller, “Political Issues and Trust in Government: 1964–1970.”
44 Mishler and Rose, “Trust, Distrust and Skepticism,” 419.
45 The WVS consists of nationally representative surveys conducted in a large number of countries and aimed at examining values and beliefs of the general public and their impact on social and political life in a large number of countries; for more information, see World Values Survey, “Who We Are – WVS Database.” The WVS (Wave 6), however, only includes five sub-Saharan African countries: Ghana, Nigeria, Rwanda, South-Africa, and Zimbabwe.
46 Delhey, Newton, and Welzel, “How General is Trust in ‘Most People’?” 796.
47 Norris, “Making Democracies Work.”
48 Kuenzi, “Social Capital and Political Trust in West Africa.”
49 UNDP, “Human Development Report 2015: Ghana.”
50 Gyimah-Boadi, “Another Step Forward for Ghana,” 138.
51 Based on the Polity IV Project (2015) and using the Polity2 score – which ranges from −10 (most autocratic) to +10 (most democratic) – Ghana obtains an 8 which puts it in the same category as, for instance, Belgium. Marshall, Gurr, and Jaggers, “Polity IV Project.”
52 Kuenzi, “Social Capital and Political Trust in West Africa,” 3.
53 For example: Schoon and Cheng, “Determinants of Political Trust.”
54 Mishler and Rose, “What are the Origins of Political Trust?”; Mishler and Rose, “Trust, Distrust and Skepticism.”
55 Party affiliation was included in previous analyses but the variable seemed to have a slightly different impact on the different items of our institutional trust variable. Although it does not significantly explain the common denominator of institutional trust, it remains significant and substantial in explaining trust in the president. As this inconsistency requires further indepth research, we decided to exclude the party-variable in all analyses in the article.
56 It could be argued that the Afrobarometer also contains the necessary variables as the Afrobarometer conducts surveys on democracy, governance, economic conditions, and related issues in more than 35 African countries; for more information, see Afrobarometer, “About Us – Afrobarometer.” However, we contend that these variables are not as fine-grained as the ones of the N3S. First, some of the used answer categories are rudimentary, leading to, for instance, almost 90% being “very proud” to be a national citizen. One of the advantages of the N3S is its application of 11-point scales without naming the scales, which substantially increases scale sensitivity and reduces skewness without systematically influencing scale reliability; see Cummins and Gullone, “Why We Should Not Use 5-Point Likert Scales”; Leung, “A Comparison of Psychometric Properties and Normality.” Second, Afrobarometer Round 6 (Ghana) or Afrobarometer Round 5 (N = 34) lack some crucial explanatory variables such as subjective religiosity, ethnic pride, diverse dimensions of interpersonal trust, or the contribution of a specific policy. We therefore opted to use the N3S which is a sound data source although it greatly diminishes the representativeness of the data. We will, however, where possible compare our conclusions with Afrobarometer data (Round 6, 2015) to see whether and how students might differ from the rest of the Ghanaian population.
57 Langer et al., “Can Student Populations in Developing Countries be Reached by Online Surveys?”
58 Boxhill et al., The Political Culture of Democracy in Jamaica, 2006.
59 Ghana, as several other African countries, adopts a national youth service programme that obliges all Ghanaian students who have completed their Bachelor’s degree to do a full year of community service. At the time of responding, all participants of the N3S were expected to leave for national service in between a couple of weeks and a year.
60 In order to enhance the comparability with the other variables, the interpersonal trust index was rescaled with 0 as minimum and 10 as maximum.
61 See note 55 above.
62 Field, Discovering Statistics using SPSS.
63 Delhey, Newton, and Welzel, “How General is Trust in ‘Most People’?”; Norris, “Making Democracies Work”; Kuenzi, “Social Capital and Political Trust in West Africa.”
64 Hutchison and Johnson, “Capacity to Trust?” 744.
65 Levi and Stoker, “Political Trust and Trustworthiness,” 494.
66 Delhey, Newton, and Welzel, “How General is Trust in ‘Most People’?”; Kuenzi, “Social Capital and Political Trust in West Africa”; Norris, “Introduction.”
67 Berg and Hjerm, “National Identity and Political Trust”; Christensen and Lægreid, “Trust in Government”; Schoon and Cheng, “Determinants of Political Trust.”
68 Ben-Nun-Bloom, Zemach, and Arian, “The Religious Experience as Affecting Ambivalence.”
69 Berg and Hjerm, “National Identity and Political Trust”; Catterberg and Moreno, “The Individual Bases of Political Trust”; Christensen and Lægreid, “Trust in Government”; Mishler and Rose, “What are the Origins of Political Trust?”
70 Christensen and Lægreid, “Trust in Government.”
71 Mishler and Rose, “What are the Origins of Political Trust?”
72 Wong, Wan, and Hsiao, “The Bases of Political Trust in Six Asian Societies”; Mishler and Rose, “What are the Origins of Political Trust?”
73 Wong, Wan, and Hsiao, “The Bases of Political Trust in Six Asian Societies.”
74 During the peer review process, Amélie Godefroidt obtained a scholarship of the Research Foundation – Flanders. Her new title: PhD Fellow of the Research Foundation-Flanders at the Centre for Research on Peace and Development (CRPD) at the University of Leuven (KU Leuven), Belgium.
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Notes on contributors
Amélie Godefroidt
Amélie Godefroidt is a PhD researcher at the Centre for Research on Peace and Development at the University of Leuven, Belgium.Footnote74
Arnim Langer
Arnim Langer is Associate Professor in International Relations, Chair Holder of the UNESCO Chair in Building Sustainable Peace and Director of the Centre for Research on Peace and Development (CRPD) at the University of Leuven (KU Leuven), Belgium.
Bart Meuleman
Bart Meuleman is Associate Professor at the Centre for Sociological Research (CeSo) and the Centre for Research on Peace and Development (CRPD) at the University of Leuven (KU Leuven), Belgium.