Public confidence in Indian institutions: An econometric study

Abstract

Do people trust the Government and its officials? Several researchers have posed this question during their diagnosis of political institutions throughout the world. This question dates back to the 1970’s when Miller (1974) raised concerns about raising political cynicism and distrust among the citizens. Lipset and Schneider (1987) analyzed historical trends of declining political trust, comparing business, labour and government. They maintained that a “confidence gap” existed across diverse institutional sectors in America and that the gap had been widening since the 1960s. According to Nye and colleagues, only one-fourth of Americans trusted their government at the end of the 1990s, while in the mid-1960s, three -fourths of Americans trusted the government. Concerns about the declining trust in political and civic institutions begin with the assumption that the support and trust in the public institutions are imperative for their smooth functioning in a democratic society. The erosion of confidence in the major institutions of the society, especially those of the representative democracy are of far greater significance than the loss of faith in the political system and the politicians. Extensive research in this area has demonstrated that the trust in political leaders rises and falls with their tenure in the office and is subject to much more short-term swings. However, public institutions, impersonal and broadly based, are much more immune to such short fluctuations. Hence, a loss of confidence in these institutions is a much more important indicator of public dissatisfaction in general with the modern society because they form the basic societal building block. Furthermore, many observers argue that in our largescale and impersonal modern world, social and political stability and integration increasingly depend on confidence in institutions rather than trust in individuals. The World Economic Forum monitors the public TRUST coefficient through a bi-annual global opinion poll conducted by GlobeScan Incorporated to monitor the global trust levels on various institutions like the Government, local Companies, global Companies, NGOs and United Nation. According to the WEF website -“These findings are based on a global public opinion poll involving a total of 20,791 interviews with citizens across 20 countries (number of observations = 1,000 in most countries), conducted between June and August 2005 by respected research institutes in each participating country under the leadership of GlobeScan1 . Each country’s findings are considered accurate to within 3 percentage points, 19 times out of 20”. The survey gauged the public confidence coefficient by posing the respondents the question - how much they trust each institution “to operate in the best interests of our society”. Identical questions were asked in most of the same countries in January 2004, August 2002 and January 2001 so that data could be used for a longitudinal study of the confidence in those countries. Net trust levels are presented here – the difference between the percentage of respondents who express trust and those who express no trust in a given institution. Highlights of the survey are presented in the next page.