Steinar Askvik

Citizens’ trust in public and political institutions in Nepal

This article examines patterns of popular trust in political and public institutions in Nepal. We ask to what extent such trust is linked, on one hand, to citizens’ social and political identities, and on the other hand, to citizens’ perceptions of institutional performance. Our findings demonstrate that trust in public institutions varies extensively. Trust is high for a number of professional institutions, such as schools and hospitals. It is also quite high for local government institutions. Trust in the parliament and the government is much lower. Furthermore, the analysis reveals a weak relationship between institutional trust and identity variables. Demographic and social characteristics of participants, such as caste, and religious and political affiliations, have little significance in explaining the level of citizens’ trust in political and public institutions. Such trust primarily depends upon how citizens assess the performance of these institutions. Hence, patterns of institutional trust depend on how participants evaluate the current macro-political situation in Nepal, whether recent political changes are judged to have gone in the right direction. In a more general and comparative perspective our findings from Nepal fit with a performance-based theory of institutional trust, while, to a large extent, they disconfirm identity-based explanations.

Understanding Governance in South Asia

The major purpose of this chapter is to categorize and map patterns of governance in South Asia. The questions that are asked are there similarities in governance patterns in countries of this region? Does a particular pattern is more dominant and influence politics, policies, and inter-organizational relations.

In Search of Better Governance in South Asia and Beyond

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Citizens’ Trust in Public Officials: Bangladesh and Nepal Compared

Citizens’ trust in public officials is an indication of a political regime’s legitimacy and popular support for the political system. Public officials are representatives of public institutions. The more the distrust citizens’ display towards public officials, the direr the crisis of the regime and hence its viability to survive.

Understanding Administrative Culture: Some Theoretical and Methodological Remarks

The article highlights five aspects of administrative culture. It first describes different ways of conceptualizing administrative culture. The second aspect is the ontology of administrative culture, two views of which are presented. The first of these sees organizational culture as a dependent variable that can be manipulated and altered to reflect management and leadership preferences; the other views organizations as miniature societies reflecting broader societal culture. Change is more path dependent than rationally arranged at will. The third aspect of administrative culture concerns epistemology, focusing on how knowledge about culture is created, how a researcher may carry out inquiry, and what the inquiry is about. The fourth aspect – the axiology of administrative culture – concerns the appropriate administrative norms and ethical standards of public officials. Finally, the methodological aspect points to how to study and capture different aspects of administrative culture.

Political regime and popular trust in the civil service: South Africa and Norway compared

Abstract The focus of this paper is on patterns of trust in the civil services of two countries: South Africa and Norway. We ask what the factors are that determine trust in the civil service of the two countries: is it social capital or is it the character of the political regime? The data presented suggest that the amount of social capital is not relevant, and that the character of the political regime is more important for explaining variations in such trust.

Are School Committees a Source of Empowerment? Insights from Tanzania

ABSTRACT Studies on user committees often critique the claim that membership to these committees empowers people. In this article, we use survey data on empowerment school committees in Tanzania to find out whether school committee membership is a source of empowerment of people at the local levels. Our findings suggest that membership in itself has limited impact on empowerment, while access to information and gender are the major sources of empowerment. However, the role of membership to the school committee is significant insofar as it can expose members to critical information on school issues.

Citizens’ Trust in Public and Political Institutions in Bangladesh and Nepal

This paper has two major objectives. First, we try to analyze the level of citizens’ trust in public institutions in two countries—Bangladesh and Nepal. Second, we ask: What explains variations in institutional trust in these countries? We carry out analyses at the country level to show within-country and cross-country variations. The dependent variable is citizens’ assessment of institutional trust measured by confidence in a number of institutions. Two clusters of independent variables are assumed to influence citizens’ perceptions of trust. These are social capital measured as (1) generalized trust and (2) membership in different associations, and quality of government measured by (1) performance of public institutions, (2) how well they address a number of complex (so-called wicked) societal issues (human security, poverty, corruption, etc.), and (3) the trustworthiness of public officials, which is measured by their impartiality, friendliness, helpfulness, less indulgence in corrupt practices, etc. We analyze data derived from surveys we, the authors, carried out as part of a collaborative project in Nepal in 2008 and in Bangladesh in 2009, on the topic of citizens’ trust in public institutions.

Challenges of Democratic Governance in South Asia and Beyond

The history of public governance in South Asia has had a chequered history characterized by stability based on the paternalistic culture of the region coupled with formalism introduced during the British colonial rule. More recently, the state led governance that dominated pre-colonial, colonial, and post-colonial periods is in the retreat in the new-liberal, market led globalized world. Planned economy which once characterized some South Asian nations such as Bangladesh in the early 1970s and India until the 1980s has been replaced by private initiatives, liberalization, export centered growth, and market-oriented reforms.

Citizens’ Trust in Anticorruption Agencies: A Comparison Between Bangladesh and Nepal

ABSTRACT This paper analyzes citizens’ trust in anticorruption agencies (ACAs) in Bangladesh and Nepal. An increase in trust over time should indicate that the agencies are performing according to citizens’ expectations. The data come from two waves of surveys. Our findings suggest that in the first wave trust patterns are similar for both countries; in the second wave, trust in ACAs in Nepal increased significantly. In explaining variations in trust, we found that trust was linked to citizens’ experiences with political processes, including their alienation from those processes and their perceptions of the trustworthiness of institutions, civil servants, and politicians in general.