Exploring the Implications of Relationship between Public Trust and Governance Using Regression Analysis

Abstract

This paper focuses on the issues facing the public administration of the Government of Pakistan by correlating public trust with multiple governance indicators. The overall sphere of the governance was divided into three main segments, which included, performance, empowerment and self-expression. All the subordinate indicators with which the administrative performance was analyzed were distributed within these three macro segments. A questionnaire distributed to the general public was used to judge the strength of the relationship between trust in government and different indicators of performance under the purview of the public administration. Multiple regression analysis was used to determine the strength of the variables to trust in the administration. The results show that similar to research done in other countries most of the factors mentioned in literature, such as corruption and quality of public service did have a strong relationship with trust, however, environmental performance, citizen input, right to criticize govt. seemed not to have a significant relationship with trust in Pakistan. Using the results segments governance with strong relationship to trust and weak administrative performance were identified. The research provides a general framework, which will help increase trust of the public in the government, which is of utmost important to improve the ability of the Pakistani public administration to deliver goods and services to the general public.