How Much Do Citizens Trust Their Local Governments?

In the IVVM reports, citizens’ levels of trust in their local governments have been quantified since 1992. The question asked was: “Do you trust your local government?” (IVVM 5 June, 2000).

On the following Figure 2.1, the answers “certainly yes” and “generally yes” are shown as “yes”, and the answers “generally not” and “certainly not” as “no”.

The development curve of trust in local governments indicates growing trust in general. The changes in trust are firmly linked with dates of local elections (November of 1994 and of 1998):

the lowest trust levels are seen before elections, with the highest after them. It can also be observed that after the elections, the level of trust started each time at a higher percentage, resulting in long-term growth. Thus, the current level of trust in local governments in the Czech Republic was at its highest in the 1999–2000 period.

Figure 2.1

Development of Trust in Local Government From 1992 to 2000

Comparing levels of trust in local governments with that in the nation’s highest constitutional bodies, we see that local governments are trusted much more than the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate of the Parliament, and far more than the national government. This is shown in Figure 2.2, based on answers to the question “Do you trust those who now control Czech society?” (IVVM 25 SEP 2000, 2 NOV 1994, 7 OCT 1994). Percentages of “yes, I certainly do” and “yes, I generally do” answers are shown and the appropriate data about trust in local governments are added.

Figure 2.2

Development of Trust in Constitutional Bodies From 1993 to 2000

Do you trust your local government?

09.92 05.93 11.93 05.94 11.94 05.95 11.95 07.96 11.96 05.97 10.97 05.98 05.99 05.00

70

50 60

30 70

10 40

20

0

Yes No

10.93 0

11.94 05.98 05.99 05.00

10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80

President Senate Government Local Council Deputies Trust in...

At the time being, the level of trust in local governments is practically at the same level as the trust in the President (which is now at either stagnation or falling levels). The overall positive views towards local government is even more striking if we compare levels of distrust. Only distrust of the President is substantially lower than distrust of local governments.

To summarize long-term characteristics of trust (and distrust) levels in the President, parliamentary chambers, national government and local self-governments, we can say:

• the highest level of trust is enjoyed by the President of the Republic, though that trust falls a little or stagnates;

• second place is held by local councils with a distance of about 10% to 20%; trust in them has grown substantially and before four years it overtakes the trust in national government;

• following this is trust in the national government, though it has grown a little in the last year;

• deeply behind the third rank is the level of trust in the Chamber of Deputies, which is notoriously low;

• even lower is trust in the Senate, the upper chamber of parliament, which did not find much empathy among most citizens.

As to the current state of trust in local governments (May 2000), the results of IVVM survey [2]

give the following picture:

• among 60% of citizens expressing trust in local governments, 9% gave the answer “certainly yes” and 51% “generally yes”;

• among 21% citizens distrusting local governments, 15% gave the answer “generally no”

and 6% “certainly no”, and,

• the answer of the remaining 19% was “don’t know”.

Levels of trust in local government are considerably influenced by the size of the community where the respondent lives. In communities with a population under 5 000 inhabitants, the percentage of trust is significantly greater, and especially in communities of under 2 000 inhabitants, even the answer “certainly yes” is significantly greater. On the contrary, in biggest communities (over 100 000 inhabitants) the ratio of trusting citizens is significantly lower and the ratio of “don’t know” answers is higher, too.

The level of trust is also greater among people between 45 and 49 years of age, among women, among people with higher education levels, and among those who consider their living standards as “good”. Regional differences stood out only in eastern Bohemia, where the level of trust in local government is significantly higher than in the other seven regions of the Czech Republic.

On the supplementary question asking about the reasons behind such widespread distrust, those who expressed their distrust in their answer to the previous question consistently mentioned the following causes:

• bad work (performance) of local government (25% of them);

• local government gives preference to own or group interests, instead of the interests of the community and its citizens (20%);

• inadequate composition of the council (19%);

• local government’s lack of interest in the community and its citizens (14%), and,

• local government informs citizens insufficiently about public affairs (7%).

The research work “Public Policy and Its Actors” from 1995 [3] showed important differences in the level of trust in local councils, based on the representative sample of ordinary citizens and public officials:

Table 2.4

Trust in Local Government as Expressed by Citizens and Local Authority Officials

Trust in Local Council Citizens [%] Officials [%]

Certainly not 6.3 0.9

Generally not 13.2 5.0

Neither yes nor no 44.3 32.0

Generally yes 27.7 49.1

Certainly yes 4.0 11.3

Don’t know 4.6 1.8

S^OURCE: Public Policy and its Actors, 1995 [3]

There is an inherent problem, however, in making direct comparisons between these data and those taken from IVVM surveys because of the middle category (“neither yes nor no”), which

“drains” answers from both sides. However, we can take these data as rather tending more to confirm than to refute the knowledge gained from IVVM surveys. Citizens who distrust local councils represent 19.5% of the sample, with the more trusting respondents calculated at 31.7%.

We must also take into account that the middle answer could be given by those who would refuse to answer otherwise. Having all that in mind, we can view these results as generally conforming to IVVM data (in the same year: distrusting about 25%, trusting about 55% to 59%).

However, one is presented with an entirely different picture on trust in local self-government from members of administration (either from state or local government authorities). From the data available, we cannot differentiate between officials and council members. Thus the results (as a kind of self-reflection) can be connected with council members very freely only. Nevertheless, the administrative workers (either nominated or elected) express their confidence in local governments on so strikingly higher level that it makes us to suspect them of self-satisfaction or even self-praise: only 6% of them don’t trust local governments (including the 1% who selected the answer “certainly not”).

These 1995 data do not prove the inverse linear relation between levels of trust in local governments, and the size of the community in quite such an unambiguous way as the IVVM data do. The relation holds only for communities with populations under 3 000, who generally experience higher trust levels. The data show significantly lower levels of trust in local government in communities with 3 000 to 5 000 inhabitants than in communities with 5 000 to 20 000 citizens, or even in those with 20 000 to 100 000 inhabitants. Only in big towns (over 100 000) is the level of trust in local governments lower again than in communities of populations between 3 000 and 5 000 inhabitants.