Government for Leaving No One Behind: Social Equity in Public Administration and Trust in Government

Abstract

A great deal of ink has been spilled over attempts to increase trust in government. Surprisingly, the impact of social equity on trust in government has received relatively little attention. Particularly, insufficient attention has been paid to empirically connect the linkage between a country-level social equity and an individual-level trust in government. The purpose of this study is to examine the impacts of social equity on citizen trust in government. This study uses a multilevel analysis to take into account macro-country level social equity. The findings from analyzing the World Values Survey and the Rule of Law Index reveal that social equity in administrative processes is positively associated with trust in the courts and the police. It is imperative to consider social equity in public administration to get a better understanding of developing citizen trust in government.

Keywords

social equity trust in government performance theory multilevel regression analysis comparative research

Introduction

The salience of social equity was highlighted first by the New Public Administration (NPA) in the Minnowbrook conference against the Weberian public administration. Since then, few have denied that social equity is the key feature of public administration distinguished from the private sector. In recent years, rising economic inequalities have been accompanied by other forms of democratic privation (Frederickson, 2005). Thus, many researchers have examined the relations between income inequalities and generalized trust (e.g., Bergh & Bjørnskov, 2014; Rothstein & Uslaner, 2005; Steijn & Lancee, 2011). Nonetheless, the previous literature shows disproportionately little interest in the impact of social equity on trust in government.

Some studies emphasized the procedural aspects of government activities in affecting public trust (Herian et al., 2012; Hibbing & Theiss-Morse, 2002; Van Ryzin, 2011). However, they have heavily relied on individual-level measurements. This approach slights the influence of countries’ context on citizen trust. Moreover, the previous literature largely concentrates on specific contexts, which limits the generalizability of results. Without examining the fact that citizen attitudes may vary because of national conditions, there are risks of estimating the model incorrectly (Battaglio & Legge, 2008). With respect to the impact of social equity on trust in government, very few studies have connected macro-level equity indicators to micro-level trust in government by the international data. Identifying and discussing these gaps in the current understanding of social equity contributes to the literature.

Triggered by these problems, the purpose of this article is to examine the influences of social equity on trust in government by assessing the World Values Survey (WVS) and the Rule of Law Index (RLI). By doing so, a comprehensive understanding of social equity and trust in government can be acquired.

The next section presents a literature review and hypotheses. In a subsequent section, the methodology is explained. The results from a multilevel regression analysis are presented. The article concludes by suggesting theoretical contributions and practical implications.

Research Questions and Hypotheses

Trust in Government

Although a precise definition has been difficult to pin down, trust in government is about “a barometer of citizens’ feeling toward government” (Hetherington & Rudolph, 2015, p. 37). More comprehensively, Weatherford (1987, p. 13) defines it as “citizens’ feelings about the overall fairness and competence of government.” Trust is one of the most important ingredients upon which the legitimacy and sustainability of political systems are built and maintained (Blind, 2010). A democratic regime will not survive long if it does not build and sustain the trust of its citizens (Aydın & Cenker, 2012; Popovski, 2010). Therefore, it is no surprise that government functioning relies on public trust because democracies are representative in nature (Hetherington, 2005).

For sure, trust has a quite heterogeneous characteristic (Thomas, 1998). Uslaner (2008) categorizes trust as a moralistic and strategic one. Moralistic trust is the belief that others should be treated as you would wish to be treated by them (Uslaner, 2008). From Uslaner’s perspective, this trust is not based on calculations, but on the norm that is supposed to be followed. To stretch features of moralistic trust toward the relation between citizen and government, moralistic trust emerges when the government treats the citizen the way in which the citizen expects it to do. According to Uslaner, on the contrary, strategic trust reflects the expectation about how people will behave. As the word “strategic” connotes, this type of trust is generated when one delivers the results other wants. In the context of governance, strategic trust occurs when government provides the public services or policies demanded by citizens.

Uslaner’s notion has relevance to the governmental working process. Moralistic trust does not guarantee results. However, this enforces government to follow a proper procedure to treat citizens. By contrast, strategic trust is more about the results that citizens want from the government. These differentiated characteristics of trust indicate that citizen does not only want the outcome but also the process.

Social Equity

Understanding the NPA movement in public administration is essential in explaining social equity. The participants in the Minnowbrook Conference of 1968 called for social equity in public administration (Dooley, 2020; Gooden, 2010). In particular, Frederickson (1971) stresses that public administration should stand on three pillars: efficiency, effectiveness, and economy. NPA significantly contributes to public administration by adding the social equity aspect which has not been properly considered. Social equity became a vital principle of public administration (McCandless & Ronquillo, 2020).

Scholars from various fields have spent considerable time and effort clarifying the difference between equity and equality. Equality and equity are often used interchangeably (Lee, 2019). Gooden (2015) sees equality as the principle that the same rights apply to all, whereas equity is the notion of justice and fair treatment of all. In this article, the term “equity” is used because it reflects the social circumstance more comprehensively.

Social equity is rooted in the idea that everyone is equal and has inalienable rights (Guy & McCandless, 2012). Social equity is about “whether citizens of different social groups are treated equitably or fairly and whether they receive the same treatment and experience similar outcomes” (Charbonneau & Riccucci, 2008, pp. 605–606). Jos (2016) argues that procedural fairness and due process are essential to advancing social equity.

Social equity is an inclusive concept and can be perceived in various ways (Blessett et al., 2019; Box, 2015; Johnson & Svara, 2015). Social equity covers a wide range of issues (Dooley, 2020). Much of the social equity research has been focused on race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, region, disability status, immigration status, veteran’s status, and language of origin (Wooldridge & Gooden, 2009). In addition, social equity can shed light on social economic class, public transportation, health care, environmental threats, intergenerational issues, public participation, and human trafficking (Clark, 2018; Garrett & Taylor, 1999; Guy & McCandless, 2012). Moreover, Riccucci (2009) investigates the racial proportion of high-ranking officers in the federal government to study social equity. Andrews and Entwistle (2010) use pedestrian crossing facilities for the physically disadvantaged as a measure of social equity. On top of that, Hamidullah et al. (2015) use a just distribution of resources as social equity. Svara and Brunet (2005) include procedural fairness, distribution and access (equality in the availability of services/benefits), and equality in the process of providing services and benefits. Among a variety of dimensions, the present study focuses on social equity in the administrative process because citizens must have a fair and equal opportunity to obtain public services.

Social equity in public administration is particularly important because the underlying working mechanism is different from the one operating in the private sector. For instance, amusement parks such as Six Flag or Disney World sell Fast Pass for customers who want to beat the long waiting line. This type of practice does not work in public organizations. One must wait if required in a long line at the Department of Motor Vehicle to renew their driver license regardless of how much money he or she has. In principle, the government should treat citizens without bias and promote fairness. In this regard, an impartial process is a key facet of public administration.

Social Equity and Trust in Government

Diminished public trust can deteriorate the government’s capability to fulfill its role (Clark & Lee, 2001), citizens’ willingness to pay taxes (Scholz & Lubell, 1998), compliance with the law (Tyler, 2010), and investments in the project by the government (Yang & Holzer, 2006). More importantly, it harms the government’s legitimacy and eventually has deleterious effects on the democratic system (Easton, 1965). Because of far-reaching effects, many scholars have attempted to find ways to rekindle citizens’ trust in the government. They pinpoint that government’s performance is a strong predictor to reinvigorate trust (Hetherington, 1998; Wang & Van Wart, 2007). And some politicians wish to see the government run like a business.

In response to this awareness, the advocates of New Public Management (NPM) emphasized a result-oriented government. Inspired by the NPM principles, numerous governments around the world have made efforts to enhance the quality of public service. However, the level of trust did not improve as much as intended. Moreover, there were growing concerns, because NPM largely focused on measurable efficiency (Kellough, 1998; Thompson & Riccucci, 1998). The result-oriented reforms raised the following questions: Do citizens only pay attention to the efficiency of government? What if they value social equity over efficiency? This oversight of NPM in its attempt to boost citizen trust brought into focus the importance of social equity.

Social equity can be one of the missing links between government performance and trust in government. Performance theory offers an explanation of the relationship between social equity and trust in government. Performance theory maintains that the actual performance of government, in this context, is the key to understanding citizens’ confidence in it (Newton & Norris, 2000). Frederickson (1971) argues that social equity is as important as efficiency and effectiveness, and makes social equity the “third pillar” of public administration. If a citizen sees value in social equity as crucial government performance, high levels of social equity will bolster public support for governments.

Government performance can be understood by the organizational performance of government agencies. Brewer and Selden (2000) develop theoretical dimensions of organizational performance. They combine three types of administrative values (efficiency, effectiveness, fairness), and organization focus (internal, external). By doing so, they generate six dimensions of organizational performance: internal efficiency, external efficiency, internal effectiveness, external effectiveness, internal fairness, and external fairness. Among these six dimensions, external fairness is closely associated with social equity. Moreover, Walker et al. (2011) include equity when they measure the organizational performance of government. Furthermore, Andrews and Entwistle (2010) view government performance as the dimensions of efficiency, effectiveness, and equity. Lühiste (2006) highlights the importance of the government’s capacity to produce procedural goods and desired output, such as equal and fair treatment of the citizens.

As Frederickson argues, social equity is the third pillar of public administration and is an important component of government performance. Hakhverdian and Mayne (2012) stress that procedural performance is important as a democratic mechanism of government by the people. Citizens tend to judge procedural performance according to the extent to which the democratic promise of political fairness is kept (Hakhverdian and Mayne, 2012). Indeed, social equity in public administration lies in procedural fairness such as due process and equal protection.

It is no surprise that citizens who live in good governance expect impartiality from the public servants (Ziller & Schübel, 2015). In this sense, in as much as the government enhances social equity, citizens will see the government is accountable and trustworthy. All other things being equal, it seems clear that higher levels of social equity lead to higher levels of trust in government. Following this reasoning, this study examines the following hypothesis.

Hypothesis: Social Equity Positively Affects Trust in Government. Trust is “a situational feature that can exist in varying levels between two parties that are interdependent (Pautz & Wamsley, 2012, p. 861).” Citizens can make distinctions between diverse types of institutions (Rothstein & Stolle, 2008, p. 294). Trust in government may vary significantly by institutions because citizens have different reasons to trust different institutions (van der Meer, 2010; Yang & Holzer, 2006; Ziller & Schübel, 2015). Therefore, scholars need to measure trust in sub-governmental institutions separately for its better understanding. For this reason, Tolbert and Mossberger (2006) and Lee (2019) separate government into federal, state, local government and central, local government, Congress, and the court, respectively. In addition, Ligthart and van Oudheusden (2015) examine the influence of fiscal decentralization on trust in the national government, parliament, and civil service. They find the lopsided impacts of fiscal decentralization on trust in specific branches of government. Dinesen and Jæger (2013) show that the 3/11 Madrid terrorist attack had differential impacts on trust in government depending on the government institutions involved.

Furthermore, Hetherington and Rudolph (2015) separate government into Environment Protection Agency, Department of Defense, and Health and Human Service when they examine the relationship between trust in government and support for government spending. Based on their empirical results that there are variations in the impacts, they argue that although people may not trust the government as a whole, they trust specific parts of the government. This indicates that citizens may not equally trust all branches of government and other public institutions.

Mainly, citizens will express more trust responding to higher levels of social equity. If citizens are sophisticated enough to distinguish the role of government branches, the magnitude of impacts of social equity on trust in each government branch will vary. How trust in government is differentiated regarding various government institutions should be assessed. In this study, five sub-hypotheses are constructed depending on the parts of government.

Hypothesis 1: Social equity positively affects trust in the executive government.

Hypothesis 2: Social equity positively affects trust in the legislative government.

Hypothesis 3: Social equity positively affects trust in the judicial government.

Hypothesis 4: Social equity positively affects trust in the civil service.

Hypothesis 5: Social equity positively affects trust in the police.

Method

Data

Two data sources are used for this study. Citizen trust in government is drawn from the World Values Survey (WVS) and social equity indicators are drawn from the Rule of Law Index (RLI) conducted by the World Justice Project. WVS and RLI are pooled by the country information. WVS is matched to a specific year of RLI depending on the data when WVS was conducted. The necessary individual- and country-level variables are available for 29 countries: Argentine, Australia, Bangladesh, Brazil, Chile, China (Hong Kong SAR), Colombia, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Indonesia, Japan, Korea (South), Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Peru, Philippines, Romania, Russia, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, the United States, and Zimbabwe. The appendix provides a more detailed description of the countries considered for this study.

Although WVS is not specifically designed to focus on citizens’ trust in government, it contains the variables that are needed to estimate their trust in public institutions (Lee & Schachter, 2019). The population of the survey was people aged 18 years and above in each country. Probability sampling is a sampling technique wherein the samples are gathered in a process that gives all the individuals in the population equal chances of being selected (Inglehart et al. 2020). The main method of data collection in the WVS survey was face-to-face interview at respondent’s home/place of residence. Respondent’s answers were recorded on paper or via Computer-Assisted Personal Interview (CAPI). It was built on the European Values Survey and has been conducted since 1981.

RLI is an assessment tool designed to offer a detailed and comprehensive picture of the extent to which countries adhere to the rule of law in practice. The World Justice Project (WJP) constructs the index based on two surveys: a general population poll and a qualified respondents’ (over 300 local experts per country) survey. WJP constructs the index in consultation with academics, practitioners, and community leaders from around the world. The index team has developed a set of five questionnaires based on the index’s conceptual framework to be administered to experts and the general public. The questionnaires were translated into several languages and adapted to reflect commonly used terms and expressions (World Justice Project, 2020).

Measures

Level-1 measures (individual level: the WVS)

In social science, Level-1 points to individuals and Level-2 refer to contextual elements like countries (Steenbergen & Jones, 2002).

Trust in government

In this article, the variable of trust in government is constructed based on the seventh wave of the WVS. Trust and confidence are often used interchangeably, and the concepts overlap in many contexts. Trust in government refers to the level of citizens’ confidence in the public institutions (Rothstein & Uslaner, 2005; Vigoda-Gadot et al., 2010). Indicators of trust in government take the form of confidence in government. The WVS asked respondents about people’s confidence in public institutions. Previous literature, which utilized items of confidence in government from the WVS, used the term trust in government (e.g., Catterberg & Moreno, 2006; Holmberg et al., 2017; Lee & Schachter, 2019; Torgler, 2003).

Trust in government is measured by the following items:

I am going to name a number of organizations. For each one, could you tell me how much confidence you have in them; is it a great deal of confidence, quite a lot of confidence, not very much confidence or none at all?: The government (in your nation’s capital) / Parliament / The courts/ Civil service/ Police.

Respondents answered on a 4-point scale ranging from 1 (a great deal of confidence) to 4 (none at all) to rate each item on trust in government. For an easier interpretation, these are reversely coded. The Cronbach’s Alpha of trust in government is .862.

Demographic features

Given their potential to inflate or suppress relations between other relevant variables, several variables need to be controlled. Gender, age, and education are commonly considered as control variables. Also, political ideology is an important factor in explaining trust (Bouckaert & Van de Walle, 2003). Moreover, household income can affect trust in the government (Wroe, 2014). Table 1 contains the details of control variables.

Table 1.

Demographic Variables.

Variable	Coding scheme
Gender	1 = Male 2 = Female recode to 0 = Female 1 = Male
Age	Can you tell me your year of birth, please? 19__ (write in last two digits). This means you are __ years old.
Education	What is the highest educational level that you have attained? 1 = No formal education ~ 8 = University-level education with degree
Political ideology	In political matters, people talk of “the left” and “the right” How would you place your view on this scale, generally speaking, 1 = Left ~ 9 = right
Household income	On this card is an income scale on which 1 indicates the lowest income group and 10 the highest income group in your country. We would like to know in what group your household is. Please specify the appropriate number, counting all wages, salaries, pensions, and other incomes that come in.
Social equity	Equal treatment and absence of discrimination Measures whether individuals are free from discrimination—based on socio-economic status, gender, ethnicity, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, or gender identity—with respect to public services, employment, court proceedings, and the justice system. Due process of law and rights of the accused Measures whether the basic rights of criminal suspects are respected, including the presumption of innocence and the freedom from arbitrary arrest and unreasonable pre-trial detention. It also measures whether criminal suspects are able to access and challenge evidence used against them, whether they are subject to abusive treatment, and whether they are provided with adequate legal assistance. In addition, it measures whether the basic rights of prisoners are respected once they have been convicted of a crime. Due process in administrative proceedings Measures whether the due process of law is respected in administrative proceedings conducted by national and local authorities in issue areas such as the environment, taxes, and labor. People have access to affordable civil justice Measures the accessibility and affordability of civil courts, including whether people are aware of available remedies; can access and afford legal advice and representation; and can access the court system without incurring unreasonable fees, encountering unreasonable procedural hurdles, or experiencing physical or linguistic barriers. Civil justice is free of discrimination Measures whether the civil justice system discriminates in practice based on socio-economic status, gender, ethnicity, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, or gender identity.

Level-2 measure (country-level: the RLI)

Social equity

A true measure of social equity is quite elusive. The National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA, 2000) defines social equity in public administration as

the fair, just and equitable management of all institutions serving the public directly or by contact, and the fair, just and equitable distribution of public services, and implementation of public policy, and the commitment to promote fairness, justice, and equity in the formation of public policy.

Riccucci (2009) considers justice, fairness, and equality as components of social equity. Moreover, in the context of social equity, Guy and McCandless (2012) consider procedural fairness such as due process and equal protection. Andrews and Van de Walle (2013) measure equity as “treat all type of people fairly.” Van Ryzin (2015) considers “being responsive to residents,” “treating residents with respect,” and “treating all residents fairly” to measure the administrative process. Furthermore, due process is indeed vital to advance social equity (Svara & Brunet, 2020).

The RLI is most suitable for the purpose of this article because it includes items germane to the definition of previous literature. Following NAPA’s (2000) definition and Van Ryzin’s measurement, this study constructs the index using the following five variables: “Equal treatment and absence of discrimination,” “Due process of law & rights of the accused,” “Due process in administrative proceedings,” “People have access to affordable civil justice,” and “Civil justice is free of discrimination.” These variables have been standardized, ranging from 0 to 1 where higher values indicate greater levels of social equity. The Cronbach’s alpha is .917. Table 1 shows how the five variables were measured.

Analytical Strategy

In social sciences, nested research designs are commonly found because the individual-level model is too simplistic to accurately capture social phenomena (Raudenbush, 1993). Integrating micro and macro information into a single model poses a challenge to researchers (de Leeuw & Meijer, 2007). In particular, aggregation of individual responses generates biased outcomes (Duch et al., 2000). In this article, respondents of the WVS are nested within country contexts. Therefore, failing to account for contextual variables may limit the predictive power.

Multilevel modeling is an increasingly popular technique and plays an important role in analyzing hierarchical data (Afshartous & de Leeuw, 2005; Curran & Bauer, 2007) because it tests variables at different levels without necessary recourse to aggregation or disaggregation and focuses on differences between groups in relation to differences within groups (Garson, 2013). As such, it helps the researcher to test the generalizability of findings by exploring causal heterogeneity (Steenbergen & Jones, 2002).

Trust takes place in socially embedded contexts. In this article, the multilevel modeling method is conducted to connect trust in government (an individual level) and social equity (country level). The Level-1 model specifies how individual-level predictors are associated with the citizen-level outcome. At Level-2, each of the regression coefficients entered in the Level-1 model may be predicted by the country-level predictors. The intercept and slope parameters obtained from the Level-1 analysis served as dependent variables in equations used for a between unit (Mossholder et al., 1998).

Results

Descriptive Information and Correlation

Table 2 presents the means, standard deviations, and correlation between the variables. The respondents’ mean age was 42.39 years (SD = 16.21) and 48% of them were women. The mean of trust in government index is 2.45 with a standard deviation of 0.77. Social equity was positively and significantly related to trust in government (r = .03, p < .01). Political ideology correlated negatively with social equity (r = –.13, p < .01).

Table 2.

Means, Standard Deviations, and Correlations.

Variable	M	SD	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
1. Sex	0.48	0.50	1
2. Age	42.39	16.21	.03**	1
3. Education	3.29	1.99	.06**	−.12**	1
4. Income	4.72	2.11	.02**	−.09**	.29**	1
5. Political ideology	5.78	2.47	.01**	.01**	−.11**	.04**	1
6. Social equity	0.49	0.13	−.02**	.27**	.27**	.05**	−.13**	1
7. Trust	2.45	0.77	−.02**	.06**	−.07**	.02**	.10**	.03**	1

Note. Significance tests for the correlations are two-tailed.

p < .05. **p < .01.

Multilevel Regression Results

Table 3 presents the results of aggregated and disaggregated models of multilevel regression analysis. Six models in total are assessed, each incorporating the same set of independent and control variables and differing only in the dependent variables, the types of government institutions.

Table 3.

Results of Multilevel Regression Analysis.

Variable	Model 1: combined government	Model 2: central government	Model 3: congress	Model 4: courts	Model 5: civil service	Model 6: police
Sex	−.010	−.012	−.008	−.016*	.009	−.021*
Sex	(.007)	(.009)	(.008)	(.009)	(.008)	(.009)
Age	.001***	.002***	.000	.000	.001**	.002***
Age	(.000)	(.000)	(.000)	(.000)	(.000)	(.000)
Education	−.022***	−.035***	−.019***	−.018***	.008**	−.029***
Education	(.002)	(.003)	(.003)	(.003)	(.002)	(.003)
Income	.011***	.011***	.008***	.014***	.012***	.010***
Income	(.002)	(.002)	(.002)	(.002)	(.002)	(.002)
Political ideology	.017***	.028***	.016***	.015***	.008***	.021***
Political ideology	(.001)	(.002)	(.002)	(.002)	(.002)	(.002)
Social equity	.408	−.466	−.188	.957*	.354	1.338**
Social equity	(.499)	(.583)	(.550)	(.555)	(.547)	(.475)
Log-likelihood	−34,842.37	−45,397.56	−42,560.46	−44,576.17	−41,454.08	−45,348.66
Wald chi-squared	384.14***	555.51***	163.76***	150.14***	79.86***	417.31***
No. of individual-level	36,556	36,256	35,964	36,014	35,954	36,410
No. of country-level	29	29	29	29	29	29

Note. Cell entries are coefficient estimates with standard errors in parentheses.

p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

In Model 1, the dependent variable is the overall construct of trust in the combination of the three branches of government, civil service, and police. The coefficient for social equity is positive but insignificant, indicating that social equity does not appear to increase aggregate levels of trust in government. Thus, the main hypothesis is not supported. Higher levels of education negatively affect trust in the combined government. Higher household income positively affects trust in the combined government. Being conservative positively affects trust in the combined government.

In Model 2, the dependent variable is trust in central government. The more a country delivers social equity, the more its people are not inclined to be supportive of the central government. Thus, Hypothesis 1 is rejected. Older citizens are more likely to trust in central government. Higher levels of education negatively affect trust in central government. Higher household income positively affects trust in central government. Being conservative positively affects trust in central government.

In Model 3, the dependent variable is trust in Congress. Trust in Congress does not increase as social equity rises. Hence, Hypothesis 2 is rejected. Age does not appear to influence trust in Congress. Higher levels of education negatively affect trust in Congress. Higher household income positively affects trust in Congress. Being conservative positively affects trust in Congress.

In Model 4, the dependent variable is trust in the courts. Congruent with Hypothesis 3, the coefficient of social equity is positive as anticipated. With respect to individual characteristics, men are less likely to trust in the court. The coefficient of education has a negative sign and is statistically significant. Higher household income positively affects trust in the courts. Being conservative positively affects trust in the courts.

In Model 5, no significant effects were found for trust in civil service. Thus, Hypothesis 4 is rejected. Older citizens are more likely to trust in civil service. Education, income, and political ideology are positively associated with trust in civil service.

In Model 6, the dependent variable is trust in police. In line with Hypothesis 5, social equity positively affects trust in police. Male citizens are less likely to trust police. Age, income, and political ideology positively affect trust in police. However, education is negatively related to trust in police.

In sum, an examination of the impact of social equity on trust in government reveals that not all government institutions are influenced by social equity. The coefficient of social equity is significant and positive in court and police in the given models. This indicates that citizens put emphasis on the role of court and the police with respect to social equity. People harbor distrust of the institutions of law and order for low social equity. Dinesen and Jæger (2013) demonstrate that trust in the law-and-order institution such as courts and police is different from that in the national government and Congress. Such divergent views imply that citizens can distinguish which government institution is responsible for what.

Discussion

This article attempted to answer research question: “How does social equity affect citizen trust in government?” In congruence with previous research that emphasized administrative process, this article partially credits citizen trust in government to its fair treatment of the citizenry. Further analysis revealed that the impact of social equity on trust in government varies according to the government institutions. The results presented here provide support for the two of the sub-hypotheses posed above. Positive impacts of social equity on citizen trust in court and the police are found, to varying degrees.

This research contributes to the literature in several ways. This article reaffirms that social equity is worthy of being treated as an important criteria of government performance. The dearth of studies has been addressed, at least at the interplay of the national–individual level, by the recent flurry of research which has tried to investigated the impacts of social equity. NPM underplays the role of democratic-constitutional values such as due process and transparency (Piotrowski & Rosenbloom, 2002) because it concentrates on public management that increases efficiency (Peters & Pierre, 1998). Public service is not just service and citizens are not just consumers of government services (Heintzman & Marson, 2005).

The relationship between social equity and trust in government can be explained by performance theory. Performance theory rests on the assertion that the key to understanding trust in government is government performance (Lee, 2018; Newton & Norris, 2000). When it comes to trust in government, it makes intuitive sense that citizens make judgments based on the government’s performance. Including social equity properly as government performance makes possible a deeper understanding of performance theory. “Citizens are entitled to expect parity of treatment, regardless of their status or income” (Fieschi & Heywood, 2004, p. 295). Assurance of equal treatment is an essential job of governing. Government should bolster social equity and it redresses the outsized power of the market. In particular, government needs to establish an explicit target for social equity, just as many do with efficiency.

In addition, the fact that a citizen moderately makes government responsible for specific assigned jobs is worth a comment. Government covers a wide range of institutions. To be more specific, executive government is consisted of hundreds of department and sub-organizations. Theoretically, researchers have some consensus that trust in government has different meanings depending on a specific government institution. However, in practice, it is doubtful whether citizen differentiates trust in various public organizations. This study offers limited evidence that citizen is cognizant of the differentiation.

It has been over four decades that Frederickson deplored the lack of social equity in public administration. Although many aspects have been changed, there is much room to improve in terms of social equity. The importance of frontline workers should be emphasized. Earning citizen’s trust depends on the frontline workers treating citizens with a high level of care and respect. Frontline workers should do their best to treat citizens with public service ethos, without prejudice. Frontline public servants like police can elevate social equity. It can help regain confidence in the government. Also, as a strategy of trust management, high ranking public officers need to motivate their workers to work for the betterment of social equity.

Furthermore, this study offers practical implications for public performance measurement. Due to the influences of NPM, many government performance indexes are focused on quantifiable efficiency or effectiveness. Governments are often considered as being responsible for reducing social vulnerability by promoting social equity (Gooden et al., 2009). Although social equity is considered an important public value, it has been eclipsed by other government values such as efficiency and effectiveness (Charbonneau et al., 2009). If government performance and its measurement include social equity or public value properly, the span and understanding of performance would enlarge (Bryson et al., 2014). For instance, Wichowsky and Moynihan (2008) suggested perception of fair treatment, chance to voice concerns with program, responsiveness of agency as intermediate outcome measurements. These changes will nudge public organizations to provide their services by employing social equity elements.

As with any study, there are a number of limitations as well in this study. The present study has only utilized cross-sectional data, which makes causal inferences weaker. Temporal precedence is needed to clarify possible bi-directional causes. Causal evidence on trust in government is hard to be established by cross-sectional data because the unmeasured macro factors influence trust. There can be macro-level dynamics such as political scandals and economic crises. These unmeasured events possibly threaten the validity of the conclusions. Researchers can come to more fully appreciate the impact on trust in government when they use longitudinal data.

This study offers directions for the future studies. In managing government performance, government may confront trade-off between efficiency and equity (Hou et al., 2011). In this respect, Behn (2001) notices the accountability dilemma that the trade-off between accountability for rules and for performance can hinder responsiveness. Under value-conflicting circumstances, citizens may prioritize process over outcome. For instance, Hetherington and Rudolph (2008) show that political trust is a function of not only performance but also process. It is worth examining whether pursuing social equity lowers an efficiency aspect of government performance.

Footnotes

Appendix

Appendix.

The Level of Social Equity of Countries Used in This Study.

Country	Social equity	Number of respondents
Argentina	.622	1,003
Australia	.718	1,813
Bangladesh	.342	1,200
Brazil	.524	1,762
Chile	.592	1,000
China (Hong Kong)	.726	2,075
Colombia	.482	1,520
Ecuador	.430	1,200
Ethiopia	.370	1,230
Germany	.804	1,528
Greece	.558	1,200
Guatemala	.370	1,203
Indonesia	.390	3,200
Japan	.762	1,353
South Korea	.680	1,245
Malaysia	.522	1,313
Mexico	.372	1,739
New Zealand	.766	1,057
Nicaragua	.356	1,200
Nigeria	.472	1,237
Peru	.442	1,400
Philippines	.410	1,200
Romania	.596	1,257
Russia	.470	1,810
Thailand	.466	1,500
Tunisia	.570	1,208
Turkey	.378	2,415
United States	.556	2,596
Zimbabwe	.388	1,215

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research and/or authorship of this article.

ORCID iD

Yunsoo Lee

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