Capacity to trust? Institutional capacity, conflict, and political trust in Africa, 2000–2005

Abstract

Civil conflict and state failure has often been linked to breakdowns in regime legitimacy. Trust in government is a critical element of regime legitimacy and the state's ability to mediate between the demands of competing groups within society. We contend that government capability is a primary factor in shaping individuals' ascription of legitimacy to the state. Capable governments foster perceptions of legitimacy while poor institutional performance decreases the degree to which individuals trust their government. While some tests of this relationship exist in extant literature, much of the work fails to integrate both micro-and macro-level factors, is confined to regions with established state performance, or is based on single-country studies. Our approach avoids many of these deficiencies by using 32 Afrobarometer surveys collected across 16 different countries from 2000 to 2005 and employing hierarchical linear models to estimate the effects of temporal-specific, state-level variables on levels of individual trust. We find that higher institutional capacity is associated with increased levels of individual trust in government across African countries. Furthermore, we demonstrate that this effect on political trust is independent of other individual-level attitudes, socio-economic characteristics, and a state's prior internal conflicts.

The Hearts and Minds in Conflict and Peace

“…Cassar, Grosjean, and Whitt (2013), Cuesta and Alda (2012), Luca and Verpoorten (2015), and Rohner, Thoenig, and Zilibotti (2013), yet there is only a handful of studies devoted to the topic of trust in government. These studies found that satisfaction with government services is a strong predictor of trust in government (Askvik, Jamil, and Dhakal, 2011;Hutchison and Johnson, 2011;Sacks and Larizza, 2012;Stoyan et al, 2016), a finding consistent with studies in developed countries.…”

“…When a government dutifully performs its functions, it is considered as legitimate. Therefore, it is argued, improvements in public services should induce citizens' confidence in government (Hutchison and Johnson, 2011). Further to the argument, Sacks and Larizza (2012) highlighted the behavioral mechanism that underlies this exchange relationship.…”

“…Second, most of the previous research has only relied on basic estimation methods such as OLS and multilevel analysis, which are incapable of addressing the empirical challenges of endogeneity and selection bias (e.g. see Askvik, Jamil, andDhakal (2011), Juan andPierskalla (2016), Hutchison and Johnson (2011), Sacks and Larizza (2012), and Stoyan et al (2016). This article engages these challenges by applying the instrumental variable method and Heckman's selection model to deal with the potential endogeneity bias and the data attrition problem commonly encountered in studies using survey data.…”

Trusting the Enemy: Confidence in the State Among Ex-Combatants

“…48 World Bank Conflict Prevention and Reconstruction Unit 2002, 3. 49 Askvik, Jamil, and Nath Dhakal 2011;Coleman 1994;Dasgupta 1988;Hetherington 1998;Hutchison and Johnson 2011;Levi 1998;Rotberg 2004; Van de Walle and Bouckaert 2003. demonstration that the state will consistently meet its commitments and uphold a high standard of behavior, is one of the most fundamental determinants of trust. 50 Similarly, Raiser argues that the state can build trust by exercising moral leadership.…”

“…17 Askvik, Jamil, and Nath Dhakal 2011. 18 Hutchison andJohnson 2011. 19 Azar 1990;Coleman 2003;Crocker, Hampson, and Aall 2005.…”