| Abstract [eng] |
The author of master's thesis analyzes the conceptions of public trust in the institutions, their types and factors influencing trust in the institutions. The analysis of scientific literature allowed to reveal the importance of citizens' trust (and satisfaction) in the institutions and their services in the country’s political life. Various studies in Lithuania and around the world are being carried out to analyze public trust and satisfaction in the services provided by state institutions. However, there is lack of attempts to determine the reliability of already performed studies, and to compare the results of those performed studies in order to understand the variability of public trust measured by different instruments. The problematic issue is raised in this master’s thesis: are the measures of public trust used in previous studies in Lithuania reliable and accurate? In order to answer this question a comparison between the available datasets with data on public trust in authorities was made - and it was shown to what degree why the results of public surveys differ. The object of the master’s thesis is the limitations and uncertainties of inherent in the measurement of public trust in institutions. The aim of the study is to investigate the reliability of indicators of public trust in the institutions. In order to achieve the main aim the following tasks were formulated: to analyse the concept of public trust in the authorities, its types and the practical relevance and methods of its measurement; to analyse the phenomenon of trust with reference to public administration paradigms; to formulate the methodology of empirical research on measurement of public trust; empirically explore the data collected by survey organizations, demonstrate and explain variability in the levels of public trust in terms of statistical error and methodologies employed. The final master thesis consists of three chapters. In the first chapter, the analysis of scientific literature was carried out in order to overview the variety of public trust concepts, its types and identify the factors influencing public trust in the authorities. It also provides an overview of how trust in government has been changing throughout different public administration paradigms. The second chapter of the master thesis is devoted to the presentation and discussion of methodological aspects of the research. The third chapter analyzes the data of the European social survey, the Eurobarometer, the Lithuanian data archive for social sciences and humanities and publicly available reports of the Ministry of the Interior of the Republic of Lithuania "Confidence in State and Municipal institutions and Institutions and Service quality evaluation" in order to carry out a comparative analysis of the results and to question whether the studies performed measured public reliably and accurately. Based on the findings of the research, it can be argued that public trust is mainly influenced by the country's economic situation, government policy, also influenced by the population's interest in politics, its age, education. The analysis of the secondary data showed that the results of the studies concerning the measurement of society confidence and satisfaction in institutions, should be evaluated taking into account the possible mistakes due to the different sampling methods and sample sizes used in the surveys, the different questionnaires and the response measurement scales, specific companies conducting public surveys and other causes of systemic errors. |
