Does Government Performance Influence Public Trust? The Case of Sustainable Development Goals Policies at Local Level

Abstract

In the recent past, governments have faced a number of crises (i.e. climate change, economic crisis, COVID-19, Russia-Ukraine conflict) that affect their overall performance. Crises directly impact citizens as they yield increased unemployment and debt crisis, lead to global warming, spark high inflation, and raise the cost of living. These issues which normally mirror the way governments perform, seem to have an impact on public trust. It remains unclear how and to what extent performance influences public trust. In addition, there has been difficulty identifying accurate ways to measure performance in the public sector, especially at the local level. Using data from IDEA Consult and Gemeente-en stadsmonitor (GSM), we propose to use Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a holistic way of measuring performance and show how this performance determines public trust. Results reveal that the performance in specific SDGs (such as SDG6, SDG7, and SDG9) positively influences public trust, suggesting that government performance in some areas may be more influential in shaping public trust than others. SDG16 has the strongest statistically significant impact on public trust.