Journal article
Trust in civil servants: A cross-national dataset for public policy research, 1986-2022
Political studies, 00323217261450953
06/30/2026
DOI: 10.1177/00323217261450953
Abstract
Trust in civil servants is essential for effective governance, enabling policy implementation, public service delivery, and compliance. However, the lack of comparable cross-national data on trust in bureaucracy has limited our ability to systematically examine these relationships. To address this gap, we develop the Trust in Civil Servants (TCS) dataset with an advanced latent-variable modeling technique, using 123 national and cross-national surveys from 98 countries (1986-2022). Our measures reveal variations in trust both within and between countries. We find that economic performance and public security enhance trust in the short term, whereas government quality and effectiveness have more enduring, long-term impacts on trust in civil service. The TCS dataset opens new avenues for examining connections between trust, governance quality, and complex policy challenges across different contexts.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Trust in civil servants: A cross-national dataset for public policy research, 1986-2022
- Creators
- Yuehong Cassandra Tai - Pennsylvania State UniversityFrederick Solt - University of Iowa
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Political studies, 00323217261450953
- DOI
- 10.1177/00323217261450953
- ISSN
- 0032-3217
- eISSN
- 1467-9248
- Publisher
- Sage
- Number of pages
- 18
- Language
- English
- Electronic publication date
- 06/30/2026
- Academic Unit
- Political Science
- Record Identifier
- 9985180967502771
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