Trust in public institutions – spillover and bandwidth

ABSTRACT

The article raises the question of whether there is a relationship between the trust that citizens have in people and the trust they have in various institutions such as public administration and media/press. The data were collected from two major surveys, and the universe is limited to citizens of two Norwegian counties. The analyses show that there is a spillover effect between the trust that citizens have in people and institutions (in general) and the degree of trust citizens have in the various particular institutions. Trust between persons, and between persons and institutions, appears to have a bandwidth-type structure. These aspects or factors can be grouped into personal trust, public institutional trust and media/press trust. These different factors are correlated with each other.

KEYWORDS:

• Trust to persons and institutions
• broadband trust
• spillover effect
• Norwegian Inland

ACTION EDITOR:

• Steven Van de Walle

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Corrigendum

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Hans Chr. Høyer holds a Master's degree in political science from the University of Oslo, and a Ph. D. in political science from Karlstad University (2005). He is an associate professor at Hedmark University of Applied Sciences. His research interests include administration and administrative reform, and general issues concerning effective governance and the relation between trust and control. He works in the master programme in public management, teaching courses in political science, organization science, and management and strategy.

Erik Mønness ([email protected]) is Cand. Real. in Statistics from University of Oslo (1976). Mønness is professor in Statistics at Hedmark University of Applied Sciences, Norway. He is also visiting professor at the Industrial Statistics Research, Newcastle University, UK. Special interest in linear models, multivariate survey data analysis and design of experiments. He has had positions as Vice Chancellor, Dean, Pro-Vice Chancellor at Hedmark University College (now named Hedmark University of Applied Sciences), and has had positions within research administration at a national level.

Notes

1. In this regard, there is a theoretical discussion of whether it is possible to have trust in institutions (Skirbekk & Grimen, 2012). In this study, we proceed on the basis that it is possible to have trust in institutions.

2. Associate Professor Ulla Higdem, Professor Jon Helge Lesjø, at Lillehammer University College.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Research Council of Norway, Inland research fund, [grant number 228970].