People in Norway trust their public institutions. High levels of institutional trust have helped Norway successfully navigate the COVID-19 crisis and minimise its unintended consequences. Norway faces challenges ahead, however, that will entail complex policy choices. The society is ageing, increasingly diverse, and uncertain about how to cope with climate change, the sustainability of the welfare system and other areas involving intergenerational trade-offs. This report analyses the determinants of public trust in Norway through the lens of the OECD Trust framework, which comprises five drivers of trust grouped under the two dimensions of government competence and government values.

Trust in public institutions is essential for the legitimacy and viability of democracy. Moreover, as the COVID-19 pandemic illustrated, interpersonal and institutional trust can help countries successfully navigate social and economic crises. High levels of institutional trust also improve compliance with laws and regulations and contribute to the implementation of public policies, all of which will be crucial for achieving an inclusive recovery from COVID-19 and overcoming complex multidimensional challenges in years to come.

This chapter explores the theoretical and practical relevance of trust in public institutions by providing a critical review of the literature on institutional trust in Norway. This chapter also discusses the role that high levels of public trust have played in addressing the COVID-19 pandemic in Norway and designing the response to the crisis, both for achieving high levels of compliance and minimising the unintended socio-economic consequences. Finally, it presents the OECD framework and measurement methodology constituting the basis of this report. Pursuant to the political science and public management literatures, it introduces the concepts of competence and values as the main drivers of institutional trust.

This chapter analyses the factors that influence trust in public institutions in Norway and describes differences in trust levels across various socio-economic groups, by gender, income, education, migrant background and geographical location. Based on primary data collected for this study through the OECD Trust Survey, it presents a compound analysis on the determinants of institutional trust in Norway for the government, the local government and the civil service. It finds that the reliability of policies is the most important driver of trust in the national government, and that responsiveness of services and openness of policies are key drivers of trust in the local government while impartiality of treatment has the highest impact in trust in the civil service.

This chapter builds on the empirical analysis carried out for this case study. It deepens the analysis in a key dimension that drives institutional trust: competence. This encompasses responsiveness, or government’s ability to deliver services at the quality level that people expect, and reliability, or the effective management of social, economic and political uncertainty, all while incorporating evolving needs and addressing future challenges. It discusses several trends with the potential of influencing public trust: the effects of municipal mergers and the police reform. Digitalisation needs to be accelerated with a focus on inclusive, data driven and proactive service. It is also important to overcome barriers to innovation within the administration and further focus on mission-related tasks instead of processes and compliance. It also looks at the need to review policy‑making processes and enhance preparedness, which are essential tools for addressing complex multidimensional challenges ahead.

This chapter focuses on the core values that inform governments’ actions and thereby influence levels of institutional trust. These include government’s openness, integrity and fairness. It argues that high levels of political empowerment and participation in politics are key components explaining a good functioning democracy in Norway. However, it analyses some participation gaps, and, in particular, how a rural/urban divide overlap tends to affect fairness (equity in service delivery), integrity (influence at local level), and openness (in terms of participation, i.e. voter turnout). Finally, it presents some concrete policy actions to proactively reach out to those population groups that may feel left behind and strengthen social dialogue and inclusive and fair policy making in Norway.

In order to test the relationship between trust in public institutions, its main drivers and the impact of other contextual variables, the study carried out an analysis based on linear regressions. In all regressions, independent variables are normalised, meaning that the coefficients reported represent the change in the dependent variable as a result of one standard deviation increase in the explanatory variable. Results from linear regressions are presented for trust in government, the local government and the civil service.