Main findings from the 2021 OECD SURVEY ON DRIVERS OF TRUST IN PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS
The discussion is held on results of OECD survey of Latvian citizens’ trust in public administration 2022. The discussion will look at what are the necessary steps to promote good governance and improve public opinion and involvement. The OECD survey on public trust in public administrations is a new instrument through which it strives to provide support for the development of such national policies that would improve the reliability, responsiveness, integrity, fairness and openness of governance dimensions. The first wave of the OECD program involved 22 countries to measure and better understand what drives people’s trust state institutions in order to further improve the sustainability of democracies. Most countries were surveyed in November-December 2021, some surveys took place in 2020 and in January-March 2022.
The results of the OECD survey indicate a decrease in citizens’ trust in their democratic administrations. At the same time there is it is known that trust is an important indicator through which it is possible to learn how citizens perceive the quality of governance and connect with them. Of course, high trust in state institutions is not a necessary result of democratic governance. Low the level of trust measured in democracies is possible only because citizens in democratic systems – unlike autocratic ones – can freely report that they do not trust their government. But the resilience of democratic systems stems from open public debate about how to increase positive cooperation and mutual trust between the state administration and citizens.
This raises an important question: how governments can better communicate and engage with citizens and build trust? We will explore this and other questions about good implementation of management during the course discussion.