More Security, More Trust? Security Perceptions as a Source of Government Trust in Post-Conflict Settings

Figures & data

Figure 1. Number of respondents sampled, by county.

Figure 2. Geographic and age distribution of respondents compared to Afrobarometer.

Table 1. Summary statistics from survey.

	Mean	SD	Min	Max	N
Dependent variables
Trust in County Government	0.50	0.50	0.00	1.00	2000
Trust in Community Government	0.49	0.50	0.00	1.00	2000
Main independent variables
Security perception (self)	0.92	0.27	0.00	1.00	2000
Security perception (Liberia)	0.83	0.37	0.00	1.00	2000
Security from lack of attack	0.59	0.49	0.00	1.00	2000
Attribution of security
State security attribution	0.05	0.21	0.00	1.00	2000
Individual-level measures
Male	0.59	0.49	0.00	1.00	2000
Age	33.74	2.08	24.33	36.88	2000
Procedural Justice	2.52	0.92	1.00	4.00	2000
Free and fair elections	2.32	0.94	1.00	4.00	2000
Corruption	3.76	0.68	1.00	4.00	2000
County-level measures
Total conflict incidents	75.37	89.44	0.00	202.00	2000
Average number of peacekeepers	274.21	213.05	2.00	569.00	2000

Figure 3. Panels comparing perceptions of security and governmental trust in Liberian counties.

Table 2. Multilevel model logit regression results, perception of Liberian security.

	Trust in Government (County-Level)		Trust in Government (Community-Level)
	Model 1	Model 2	Model 3	Model 4
Liberian security	0.538***	0.611***	0.582***	0.637***
	(0.125)	(0.129)	(0.126)	(0.129)
Informal attribution		1.366**		0.763
		(0.563)		(0.532)
Gender	0.065	0.067	0.048	0.051
	(0.092)	(0.092)	(0.092)	(0.092)
Age	0.001	−0.001	0.013	0.012
	(0.025)	(0.025)	(0.025)	(0.025)
Lack of attack	0.324***	0.334***	0.154*	0.155*
	(0.093)	(0.093)	(0.092)	(0.093)
De facto instability	−0.003	−0.003	−0.0005	−0.0005
	(0.002)	(0.002)	(0.002)	(0.002)
Peacekeeping	0.001	0.001	−0.00004	−0.00002
Security × attribution	(0.001)	(0.001)	(0.001)	(0.001)
		−1.589***		−1.180**
		(0.609)		(0.582)
N	2000	2000	2000	2000

*p < .1.

**p < .05.

***p < .01.

Table 3. Multilevel model logit regression results, perception of individual security.

	Governmental Trust (County-Level)		Governmental Trust (Community-Level)
	Model 5	Model 6	Model 7	Model 8
Individual security	0.163	0.158	0.136	0.112
	(0.167)	(0.173)	(0.167)	(0.173)
Informal attribution		−0.039		−0.482
		(0.610)		(0.635)
Gender	0.076	0.076	0.059	0.062
	(0.092)	(0.092)	(0.091)	(0.091)
Age	−0.002	−0.002	0.010	0.009
	(0.025)	(0.025)	(0.025)	(0.025)
Lack of attack	0.357***	0.358***	0.195**	0.189**
	(0.093)	(0.093)	(0.093)	(0.093)
De facto instability	−0.003	−0.003	−0.0004	−0.0003
	(0.002)	(0.002)	(0.002)	(0.002)
Peacekeeping	0.001	0.001	−0.00001	−0.00003
	(0.001)	(0.001)	(0.001)	(0.001)
Security × attribution		0.090		0.302
		(0.651)		(0.675)
N	2000	2000	2000	2000

*p < .1.

**p < .05.

***p < .01.

Figure 4. Predicted probability of trust in government as function of perception of security and security attribution, county and community government.

Figure 5. Coefficient estimates for perception of Liberia safety, adjusting for alternative explanations.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in an OSF repository at https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/hd28z

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and in the supplementary materials of the article.