The inaugural OECD Survey on Drivers of Trust in Public Institutions (Trust Survey) offers a modern measurement tool for public governance. The Trust Survey is the first cross-national investigation dedicated to identifying the drivers of trust in government, across levels of government and across institutions. It is a nationally-representative survey, run in 22 countries, evaluating citizens’ confidence in public institutions. The questions in the survey build on the OECD Framework on Drivers of Trust in Public Institutions, developed over the past decade by the Public Governance Committee, as well as on a series of OECD country studies and research projects exploring how to build trust in government.

For this first edition of the Survey, some of the graphics are formatted in a way that differs from usual OECD practice. It is expected that, in future editions, data will be presented in line with OECD graphics guidelines.

The inaugural OECD Survey on the Drivers of Trust in Public Institutions (Trust Survey) is a new measurement tool for democratic governments seeking to improve public confidence in government reliability, responsiveness, integrity, fairness and openness. Twenty-two OECD countries volunteered to participate in the first wave of the programme, taking a collective step forward to measure and better understand what drives people’s trust in public institutions in order to build further the resilience of their democracies. Most countries were surveyed in November-December 2021, with a few surveys taking place in 2020 and January-February 2022.

Trust is an important indicator to measure how people perceive the quality of, and how they associate with, government institutions in democratic countries. This chapter presents a summary overview of the report Building Trust to Reinforce Democracy. It includes a discussion of the motivation behind the inaugural OECD Survey on the Drivers of Trust in Public Institutions (Trust Survey), presents the OECD Framework on Drivers of Trust in Public Institutions, and summarises the key findings of the report.

Public trust varies significantly across different institutions. The OECD Trust Survey asks respondents to indicate their level of trust in the national government, local government, civil service, the judiciary and legal system, political parties, parliaments and congresses, the media, intergovernmental organisations, and other people. This chapter presents cross-national levels of trust across these institutions and explores the degree to which different institutional traits – like reliability, responsiveness, integrity, openness and fairness – significantly correlate with levels of trust in OECD countries.

People’s trust in government depends on demographic and socioeconomic traits like age, gender, educational background, and income, as well as on their perceptions of their social status and their political attitudes. The relative importance of these factors, in addition to broader economic, cultural and institutional conditions in a country, has been shown in in-depth OECD country studies in Korea, Finland and Norway. This chapter presents a stocktaking of the relationship between different traits, socioeconomic conditions and institutional trust across countries.

How reliable and responsive do people view their governments’ policies and public services? These concepts of reliability and responsiveness – key components of government competence – are important drivers of people’s trust in public institutions. This chapter presents results from the Trust Survey on perceptions of government preparedness for a future pandemic; satisfaction with healthcare systems, educational systems, government use of personal data; and the stability of business conditions. It also presents perceptions of governments’ and civil servants’ responsiveness to public feedback in policy design, reform and delivery.

The values of a government – its propensity to do what is right, and its underlying intentions and principles – are a major driver of trust in government. People expect to be informed about government actions and have opportunities to influence policies, and they expect integrity and fairness. This chapter presents results from the Trust Survey on perceptions of government openness, the fairness of public processes and the integrity of public officials.

The governance challenges found in the Trust Survey are compounded by newer threats facing democracies today, such as mis‑information and disinformation, inequalities in political voice and participation, and uncertainty about governments’ abilities to address long-term and global challenges in a rapidly changing world. These threats to democracy affect governments’ abilities to confront the major issues of today and tomorrow. This chapter presents results on people’s perceptions of their ability to participate meaningfully in democratic political processes, their perceptions of special interests’ influence on policy makers, and their beliefs in governments’ ability to commit to difficult, intergenerational reforms that require upfront investments today. The chapter also presents an overview of news media sources used across countries.