1029227

research-article20212021
SGOXXX10.1177/21582440211029227SAGE OpenLee

Original Research

SAGE Open

Government for Leaving No One

July-September 2021: 1­–11
© The Author(s) 2021
DOI: 10.1177/21582440211029227
https://doi.org/10.1177/21582440211029227

Behind: Social Equity in Public journals.sagepub.com/home/sgo

Administration and Trust in

Government

Yunsoo Lee1

Abstract
A great deal of ink has been spilled over attempts to increase trust in government. Surprisingly, the impact of social equity
on trust in government has received relatively little attention. Particularly, insufficient attention has been paid to empirically
connect the linkage between a country-level social equity and an individual-level trust in government. The purpose of this
study is to examine the impacts of social equity on citizen trust in government. This study uses a multilevel analysis to take
into account macro-country level social equity. The findings from analyzing the World Values Survey and the Rule of Law
Index reveal that social equity in administrative processes is positively associated with trust in the courts and the police. It
is imperative to consider social equity in public administration to get a better understanding of developing citizen trust in
government.

Keywords
social equity, trust in government, performance theory, multilevel regression analysis, comparative research

Introduction there are risks of estimating the model incorrectly (Battaglio

& Legge, 2008). With respect to the impact of social equity
The salience of social equity was highlighted first by the on trust in government, very few studies have connected
New Public Administration (NPA) in the Minnowbrook macro-level equity indicators to micro-level trust in govern-
conference against the Weberian public administration. ment by the international data. Identifying and discussing
Since then, few have denied that social equity is the key these gaps in the current understanding of social equity con-
feature of public administration distinguished from the tributes to the literature.
private sector. In recent years, rising economic inequali- Triggered by these problems, the purpose of this article is to
ties have been accompanied by other forms of democratic examine the influences of social equity on trust in government
privation (Frederickson, 2005). Thus, many researchers by assessing the World Values Survey (WVS) and the Rule of
have examined the relations between income inequalities Law Index (RLI). By doing so, a comprehensive understanding
and generalized trust (e.g., Bergh & Bjørnskov, 2014; of social equity and trust in government can be acquired.
Rothstein & Uslaner, 2005; Steijn & Lancee, 2011). The next section presents a literature review and hypoth-
Nonetheless, the previous literature shows disproportion- eses. In a subsequent section, the methodology is explained.
ately little interest in the impact of social equity on trust in The results from a multilevel regression analysis are pre-
government. sented. The article concludes by suggesting theoretical con-
Some studies emphasized the procedural aspects of gov- tributions and practical implications.
ernment activities in affecting public trust (Herian et al.,
2012; Hibbing & Theiss-Morse, 2002; Van Ryzin, 2011).
However, they have heavily relied on individual-level mea-
surements. This approach slights the influence of countries’ 1
Shandong University, Qingdao, China
context on citizen trust. Moreover, the previous literature
Corresponding Author:
largely concentrates on specific contexts, which limits the Yunsoo Lee, Assistant Professor, School of Political Science and Public
generalizability of results. Without examining the fact that Administration, Shandong University, Qingdao 266237, China.
citizen attitudes may vary because of national conditions, Email: [email protected]

Creative Commons CC BY: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of
the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages
(https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
2 SAGE Open

Research Questions and Hypotheses 2019). Gooden (2015) sees equality as the principle that the
same rights apply to all, whereas equity is the notion of jus-
Trust in Government tice and fair treatment of all. In this article, the term “equity”
Although a precise definition has been difficult to pin down, is used because it reflects the social circumstance more
trust in government is about “a barometer of citizens’ feeling comprehensively.
toward government” (Hetherington & Rudolph, 2015, p. 37). Social equity is rooted in the idea that everyone is equal
More comprehensively, Weatherford (1987, p. 13) defines it and has inalienable rights (Guy & McCandless, 2012). Social
as “citizens’ feelings about the overall fairness and compe- equity is about “whether citizens of different social groups
tence of government.” Trust is one of the most important are treated equitably or fairly and whether they receive the
ingredients upon which the legitimacy and sustainability of same treatment and experience similar outcomes”
political systems are built and maintained (Blind, 2010). A (Charbonneau & Riccucci, 2008, pp. 605–606). Jos (2016)
democratic regime will not survive long if it does not build argues that procedural fairness and due process are essential
and sustain the trust of its citizens (Aydın & Cenker, 2012; to advancing social equity.
Popovski, 2010). Therefore, it is no surprise that government Social equity is an inclusive concept and can be perceived
functioning relies on public trust because democracies are in various ways (Blessett et al., 2019; Box, 2015; Johnson &
representative in nature (Hetherington, 2005). Svara, 2015). Social equity covers a wide range of issues
For sure, trust has a quite heterogeneous characteristic (Dooley, 2020). Much of the social equity research has been
(Thomas, 1998). Uslaner (2008) categorizes trust as a moral- focused on race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, region,
istic and strategic one. Moralistic trust is the belief that oth- disability status, immigration status, veteran’s status, and
ers should be treated as you would wish to be treated by them language of origin (Wooldridge & Gooden, 2009). In addi-
(Uslaner, 2008). From Uslaner’s perspective, this trust is not tion, social equity can shed light on social economic class,
based on calculations, but on the norm that is supposed to be public transportation, health care, environmental threats,
followed. To stretch features of moralistic trust toward the intergenerational issues, public participation, and human
relation between citizen and government, moralistic trust trafficking (Clark, 2018; Garrett & Taylor, 1999; Guy &
emerges when the government treats the citizen the way in McCandless, 2012). Moreover, Riccucci (2009) investigates
which the citizen expects it to do. According to Uslaner, on the racial proportion of high-ranking officers in the federal
the contrary, strategic trust reflects the expectation about government to study social equity. Andrews and Entwistle
how people will behave. As the word “strategic” connotes, (2010) use pedestrian crossing facilities for the physically
this type of trust is generated when one delivers the results disadvantaged as a measure of social equity. On top of that,
other wants. In the context of governance, strategic trust Hamidullah et al. (2015) use a just distribution of resources
occurs when government provides the public services or as social equity. Svara and Brunet (2005) include procedural
policies demanded by citizens. fairness, distribution and access (equality in the availability
Uslaner’s notion has relevance to the governmental work- of services/benefits), and equality in the process of providing
ing process. Moralistic trust does not guarantee results. services and benefits. Among a variety of dimensions, the
However, this enforces government to follow a proper proce- present study focuses on social equity in the administrative
dure to treat citizens. By contrast, strategic trust is more process because citizens must have a fair and equal opportu-
about the results that citizens want from the government. nity to obtain public services.
These differentiated characteristics of trust indicate that citi- Social equity in public administration is particularly
zen does not only want the outcome but also the process. important because the underlying working mechanism is dif-
ferent from the one operating in the private sector. For
instance, amusement parks such as Six Flag or Disney World
Social Equity
sell Fast Pass for customers who want to beat the long wait-
Understanding the NPA movement in public administration is ing line. This type of practice does not work in public orga-
essential in explaining social equity. The participants in the nizations. One must wait if required in a long line at the
Minnowbrook Conference of 1968 called for social equity in Department of Motor Vehicle to renew their driver license
public administration (Dooley, 2020; Gooden, 2010). In par- regardless of how much money he or she has. In principle,
ticular, Frederickson (1971) stresses that public administration the government should treat citizens without bias and pro-
should stand on three pillars: efficiency, effectiveness, and mote fairness. In this regard, an impartial process is a key
economy. NPA significantly contributes to public administra- facet of public administration.
tion by adding the social equity aspect which has not been
properly considered. Social equity became a vital principle of
public administration (McCandless & Ronquillo, 2020).
Social Equity and Trust in Government
Scholars from various fields have spent considerable time Diminished public trust can deteriorate the government’s
and effort clarifying the difference between equity and equal- capability to fulfill its role (Clark & Lee, 2001), citizens’
ity. Equality and equity are often used interchangeably (Lee, willingness to pay taxes (Scholz & Lubell, 1998),
Lee 3

compliance with the law (Tyler, 2010), and investments in government performance. Hakhverdian and Mayne (2012)
the project by the government (Yang & Holzer, 2006). More stress that procedural performance is important as a demo-
importantly, it harms the government’s legitimacy and even- cratic mechanism of government by the people. Citizens tend
tually has deleterious effects on the democratic system to judge procedural performance according to the extent to
(Easton, 1965). Because of far-reaching effects, many schol- which the democratic promise of political fairness is kept
ars have attempted to find ways to rekindle citizens’ trust in (Hakhverdian and Mayne, 2012). Indeed, social equity in
the government. They pinpoint that government’s perfor- public administration lies in procedural fairness such as due
mance is a strong predictor to reinvigorate trust (Hetherington, process and equal protection.
1998; Wang & Van Wart, 2007). And some politicians wish It is no surprise that citizens who live in good governance
to see the government run like a business. expect impartiality from the public servants (Ziller &
In response to this awareness, the advocates of New Schübel, 2015). In this sense, in as much as the government
Public Management (NPM) emphasized a result-oriented enhances social equity, citizens will see the government is
government. Inspired by the NPM principles, numerous gov- accountable and trustworthy. All other things being equal, it
ernments around the world have made efforts to enhance the seems clear that higher levels of social equity lead to higher
quality of public service. However, the level of trust did not levels of trust in government. Following this reasoning, this
improve as much as intended. Moreover, there were growing study examines the following hypothesis.
concerns, because NPM largely focused on measurable effi- Hypothesis: Social Equity Positively Affects Trust in
ciency (Kellough, 1998; Thompson & Riccucci, 1998). The Government. Trust is “a situational feature that can exist in
result-oriented reforms raised the following questions: Do varying levels between two parties that are interdependent
citizens only pay attention to the efficiency of government? (Pautz & Wamsley, 2012, p. 861).” Citizens can make dis-
What if they value social equity over efficiency? This over- tinctions between diverse types of institutions (Rothstein &
sight of NPM in its attempt to boost citizen trust brought into Stolle, 2008, p. 294). Trust in government may vary signifi-
focus the importance of social equity. cantly by institutions because citizens have different reasons
Social equity can be one of the missing links between to trust different institutions (van der Meer, 2010; Yang &
government performance and trust in government. Holzer, 2006; Ziller & Schübel, 2015). Therefore, scholars
Performance theory offers an explanation of the relationship need to measure trust in sub-governmental institutions sepa-
between social equity and trust in government. Performance rately for its better understanding. For this reason, Tolbert
theory maintains that the actual performance of government, and Mossberger (2006) and Lee (2019) separate government
in this context, is the key to understanding citizens’ confi- into federal, state, local government and central, local gov-
dence in it (Newton & Norris, 2000). Frederickson (1971) ernment, Congress, and the court, respectively. In addition,
argues that social equity is as important as efficiency and Ligthart and van Oudheusden (2015) examine the influence
effectiveness, and makes social equity the “third pillar” of of fiscal decentralization on trust in the national govern-
public administration. If a citizen sees value in social equity ment, parliament, and civil service. They find the lopsided
as crucial government performance, high levels of social impacts of fiscal decentralization on trust in specific
equity will bolster public support for governments. branches of government. Dinesen and Jæger (2013) show
Government performance can be understood by the organi- that the 3/11 Madrid terrorist attack had differential impacts
zational performance of government agencies. Brewer and on trust in government depending on the government insti-
Selden (2000) develop theoretical dimensions of organizational tutions involved.
performance. They combine three types of administrative val- Furthermore, Hetherington and Rudolph (2015) separate
ues (efficiency, effectiveness, fairness), and organization focus government into Environment Protection Agency, Department
(internal, external). By doing so, they generate six dimensions of Defense, and Health and Human Service when they exam-
of organizational performance: internal efficiency, external effi- ine the relationship between trust in government and support
ciency, internal effectiveness, external effectiveness, internal for government spending. Based on their empirical results
fairness, and external fairness. Among these six dimensions, that there are variations in the impacts, they argue that
external fairness is closely associated with social equity. although people may not trust the government as a whole,
Moreover, Walker et al. (2011) include equity when they mea- they trust specific parts of the government. This indicates that
sure the organizational performance of government. citizens may not equally trust all branches of government and
Furthermore, Andrews and Entwistle (2010) view government other public institutions.
performance as the dimensions of efficiency, effectiveness, and Mainly, citizens will express more trust responding to
equity. Lühiste (2006) highlights the importance of the govern- higher levels of social equity. If citizens are sophisticated
ment’s capacity to produce procedural goods and desired out- enough to distinguish the role of government branches, the
put, such as equal and fair treatment of the citizens. magnitude of impacts of social equity on trust in each gov-
As Frederickson argues, social equity is the third pillar of ernment branch will vary. How trust in government is dif-
public administration and is an important component of ferentiated regarding various government institutions should
4 SAGE Open

be assessed. In this study, five sub-hypotheses are con- has developed a set of five questionnaires based on the
structed depending on the parts of government. index’s conceptual framework to be administered to experts
and the general public. The questionnaires were translated
Hypothesis 1: Social equity positively affects trust in the into several languages and adapted to reflect commonly used
executive government. terms and expressions (World Justice Project, 2020).
Hypothesis 2: Social equity positively affects trust in the
legislative government.
Hypothesis 3: Social equity positively affects trust in the Measures
judicial government. Level-1 measures (individual level: the WVS). In social science,
Hypothesis 4: Social equity positively affects trust in the Level-1 points to individuals and Level-2 refer to contextual
civil service. elements like countries (Steenbergen & Jones, 2002).
Hypothesis 5: Social equity positively affects trust in the
police. Trust in government. In this article, the variable of trust in
government is constructed based on the seventh wave of the
Method WVS. Trust and confidence are often used interchangeably, and
the concepts overlap in many contexts. Trust in government
Data refers to the level of citizens’ confidence in the public institu-
tions (Rothstein & Uslaner, 2005; Vigoda-Gadot et al., 2010).
Two data sources are used for this study. Citizen trust in gov-
Indicators of trust in government take the form of confidence
ernment is drawn from the World Values Survey (WVS) and
in government. The WVS asked respondents about people’s
social equity indicators are drawn from the Rule of Law
confidence in public institutions. Previous literature, which uti-
Index (RLI) conducted by the World Justice Project. WVS
lized items of confidence in government from the WVS, used
and RLI are pooled by the country information. WVS is
the term trust in government (e.g., Catterberg & Moreno, 2006;
matched to a specific year of RLI depending on the data
Holmberg et al., 2017; Lee & Schachter, 2019; Torgler, 2003).
when WVS was conducted. The necessary individual- and
Trust in government is measured by the following items:
country-level variables are available for 29 countries:
Argentine, Australia, Bangladesh, Brazil, Chile, China I am going to name a number of organizations. For each one,
(Hong Kong SAR), Colombia, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Germany, could you tell me how much confidence you have in them; is it
Greece, Guatemala, Indonesia, Japan, Korea (South), a great deal of confidence, quite a lot of confidence, not very
Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Peru, much confidence or none at all?: The government (in your
Philippines, Romania, Russia, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, the nation’s capital) / Parliament / The courts/ Civil service/ Police.
United States, and Zimbabwe. The appendix provides a more
detailed description of the countries considered for this study. Respondents answered on a 4-point scale ranging from 1 (a
Although WVS is not specifically designed to focus on great deal of confidence) to 4 (none at all) to rate each item
citizens’ trust in government, it contains the variables that are on trust in government. For an easier interpretation, these are
needed to estimate their trust in public institutions (Lee & reversely coded. The Cronbach’s Alpha of trust in govern-
Schachter, 2019). The population of the survey was people ment is .862.
aged 18 years and above in each country. Probability sam-
pling is a sampling technique wherein the samples are gath- Demographic features. Given their potential to inflate or
ered in a process that gives all the individuals in the suppress relations between other relevant variables, several
population equal chances of being selected (Inglehart et al. variables need to be controlled. Gender, age, and education
2020). The main method of data collection in the WVS sur- are commonly considered as control variables. Also, political
vey was face-to-face interview at respondent’s home/place ideology is an important factor in explaining trust (Bouck-
of residence. Respondent’s answers were recorded on paper aert & Van de Walle, 2003). Moreover, household income
or via Computer-Assisted Personal Interview (CAPI). It was can affect trust in the government (Wroe, 2014). Table 1 con-
built on the European Values Survey and has been conducted tains the details of control variables.
since 1981.
RLI is an assessment tool designed to offer a detailed and Level-2 measure (country-level: the RLI)
comprehensive picture of the extent to which countries Social equity. A true measure of social equity is quite
adhere to the rule of law in practice. The World Justice elusive. The National Academy of Public Administration
Project (WJP) constructs the index based on two surveys: a (NAPA, 2000) defines social equity in public administration
general population poll and a qualified respondents’ (over as
300 local experts per country) survey. WJP constructs the
index in consultation with academics, practitioners, and the fair, just and equitable management of all institutions serving
community leaders from around the world. The index team the public directly or by contact, and the fair, just and equitable
Lee 5

Table 1. Demographic Variables.

Variable Coding scheme

Gender 1 = Male 2 = Female recode to 0 = Female 1 = Male
Age Can you tell me your year of birth, please? 19__ (write in last two digits). This means you are __ years old.
Education What is the highest educational level that you have attained?
1 = No formal education ~ 8 = University-level education with degree
Political ideology In political matters, people talk of “the left” and “the right” How would you place your view on this scale,
generally speaking, 1 = Left ~ 9 = right
Household income On this card is an income scale on which 1 indicates the lowest income group and 10 the highest income
group in your country. We would like to know in what group your household is. Please specify the
appropriate number, counting all wages, salaries, pensions, and other incomes that come in.
Social equity Equal treatment and absence of discrimination
Measures whether individuals are free from discrimination—based on socio-economic status, gender,
ethnicity, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, or gender identity—with respect to public services,
employment, court proceedings, and the justice system.
Due process of law and rights of the accused
Measures whether the basic rights of criminal suspects are respected, including the presumption of innocence
and the freedom from arbitrary arrest and unreasonable pre-trial detention. It also measures whether
criminal suspects are able to access and challenge evidence used against them, whether they are subject to
abusive treatment, and whether they are provided with adequate legal assistance. In addition, it measures
whether the basic rights of prisoners are respected once they have been convicted of a crime.
Due process in administrative proceedings
Measures whether the due process of law is respected in administrative proceedings conducted by national
and local authorities in issue areas such as the environment, taxes, and labor.
People have access to affordable civil justice
Measures the accessibility and affordability of civil courts, including whether people are aware of available
remedies; can access and afford legal advice and representation; and can access the court system without
incurring unreasonable fees, encountering unreasonable procedural hurdles, or experiencing physical or
linguistic barriers.
Civil justice is free of discrimination
Measures whether the civil justice system discriminates in practice based on socio-economic status, gender,
ethnicity, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, or gender identity.

distribution of public services, and implementation of public standardized, ranging from 0 to 1 where higher values indi-
policy, and the commitment to promote fairness, justice, and cate greater levels of social equity. The Cronbach’s alpha is
equity in the formation of public policy. .917. Table 1 shows how the five variables were measured.

Riccucci (2009) considers justice, fairness, and equality as Analytical Strategy

components of social equity. Moreover, in the context of
social equity, Guy and McCandless (2012) consider proce- In social sciences, nested research designs are commonly
dural fairness such as due process and equal protection. found because the individual-level model is too simplistic to
Andrews and Van de Walle (2013) measure equity as “treat accurately capture social phenomena (Raudenbush, 1993).
all type of people fairly.” Van Ryzin (2015) considers “being Integrating micro and macro information into a single model
responsive to residents,” “treating residents with respect,” poses a challenge to researchers (de Leeuw & Meijer, 2007).
and “treating all residents fairly” to measure the administra- In particular, aggregation of individual responses generates
tive process. Furthermore, due process is indeed vital to biased outcomes (Duch et al., 2000). In this article, respon-
advance social equity (Svara & Brunet, 2020). dents of the WVS are nested within country contexts.
The RLI is most suitable for the purpose of this article Therefore, failing to account for contextual variables may
because it includes items germane to the definition of previ- limit the predictive power.
ous literature. Following NAPA’s (2000) definition and Van Multilevel modeling is an increasingly popular technique
Ryzin’s measurement, this study constructs the index using and plays an important role in analyzing hierarchical data
the following five variables: “Equal treatment and absence of (Afshartous & de Leeuw, 2005; Curran & Bauer, 2007)
discrimination,” “Due process of law & rights of the because it tests variables at different levels without necessary
accused,” “Due process in administrative proceedings,” recourse to aggregation or disaggregation and focuses on dif-
“People have access to affordable civil justice,” and “Civil ferences between groups in relation to differences within
justice is free of discrimination.” These variables have been groups (Garson, 2013). As such, it helps the researcher to test
6 SAGE Open

Table 2. Means, Standard Deviations, and Correlations.

Variable M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
1. Sex 0.48 0.50 1
2. Age 42.39 16.21 .03** 1
3. Education 3.29 1.99 .06** −.12** 1
4. Income 4.72 2.11 .02** −.09** .29** 1
5. Political ideology 5.78 2.47 .01** .01** −.11** .04** 1
6. Social equity 0.49 0.13 −.02** .27** .27** .05** −.13** 1
7. Trust 2.45 0.77 −.02** .06** −.07** .02** .10** .03** 1

Note. Significance tests for the correlations are two-tailed.

*p < .05. **p < .01.

Table 3. Results of Multilevel Regression Analysis.

Model 1: combined Model 2: central Model 3: Model 4: Model 5: civil Model 6:

Variable government government congress courts service police
Sex −.010 −.012 −.008 −.016* .009 −.021*
(.007) (.009) (.008) (.009) (.008) (.009)
Age .001*** .002*** .000 .000 .001** .002***
(.000) (.000) (.000) (.000) (.000) (.000)
Education −.022*** −.035*** −.019*** −.018*** .008** −.029***
(.002) (.003) (.003) (.003) (.002) (.003)
Income .011*** .011*** .008*** .014*** .012*** .010***
(.002) (.002) (.002) (.002) (.002) (.002)
Political ideology .017*** .028*** .016*** .015*** .008*** .021***
(.001) (.002) (.002) (.002) (.002) (.002)
Social equity .408 −.466 −.188 .957* .354 1.338**
(.499) (.583) (.550) (.555) (.547) (.475)
Log-likelihood −34,842.37 −45,397.56 −42,560.46 −44,576.17 −41,454.08 −45,348.66
Wald chi-squared 384.14*** 555.51*** 163.76*** 150.14*** 79.86*** 417.31***
No. of individual-level 36,556 36,256 35,964 36,014 35,954 36,410
No. of country-level 29 29 29 29 29 29

Note. Cell entries are coefficient estimates with standard errors in parentheses.
*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

the generalizability of findings by exploring causal heteroge- 42.39 years (SD = 16.21) and 48% of them were women. The
neity (Steenbergen & Jones, 2002). mean of trust in government index is 2.45 with a standard
Trust takes place in socially embedded contexts. In this arti- deviation of 0.77. Social equity was positively and signifi-
cle, the multilevel modeling method is conducted to connect cantly related to trust in government (r = .03, p < .01).
trust in government (an individual level) and social equity Political ideology correlated negatively with social equity (r =
(country level). The Level-1 model specifies how individual- –.13, p < .01).
level predictors are associated with the citizen-level outcome.
At Level-2, each of the regression coefficients entered in the
Level-1 model may be predicted by the country-level predic- Multilevel Regression Results
tors. The intercept and slope parameters obtained from the
Table 3 presents the results of aggregated and disaggregated
Level-1 analysis served as dependent variables in equations
models of multilevel regression analysis. Six models in total
used for a between unit (Mossholder et al., 1998).
are assessed, each incorporating the same set of independent
and control variables and differing only in the dependent
Results variables, the types of government institutions.
In Model 1, the dependent variable is the overall con-
Descriptive Information and Correlation struct of trust in the combination of the three branches of
Table 2 presents the means, standard deviations, and correla- government, civil service, and police. The coefficient for
tion between the variables. The respondents’ mean age was social equity is positive but insignificant, indicating that
Lee 7

social equity does not appear to increase aggregate levels Discussion

of trust in government. Thus, the main hypothesis is not
supported. Higher levels of education negatively affect This article attempted to answer research question: “How
trust in the combined government. Higher household does social equity affect citizen trust in government?” In
income positively affects trust in the combined govern- congruence with previous research that emphasized admin-
ment. Being conservative positively affects trust in the istrative process, this article partially credits citizen trust in
combined government. government to its fair treatment of the citizenry. Further
In Model 2, the dependent variable is trust in central gov- analysis revealed that the impact of social equity on trust in
ernment. The more a country delivers social equity, the more government varies according to the government institutions.
its people are not inclined to be supportive of the central gov- The results presented here provide support for the two of the
ernment. Thus, Hypothesis 1 is rejected. Older citizens are sub-hypotheses posed above. Positive impacts of social
more likely to trust in central government. Higher levels of equity on citizen trust in court and the police are found, to
education negatively affect trust in central government. varying degrees.
Higher household income positively affects trust in central This research contributes to the literature in several ways.
government. Being conservative positively affects trust in This article reaffirms that social equity is worthy of being
central government. treated as an important criteria of government performance.
In Model 3, the dependent variable is trust in Congress. The dearth of studies has been addressed, at least at the
Trust in Congress does not increase as social equity rises. interplay of the national–individual level, by the recent
Hence, Hypothesis 2 is rejected. Age does not appear to flurry of research which has tried to investigated the impacts
influence trust in Congress. Higher levels of education nega- of social equity. NPM underplays the role of democratic-
tively affect trust in Congress. Higher household income constitutional values such as due process and transparency
positively affects trust in Congress. Being conservative posi- (Piotrowski & Rosenbloom, 2002) because it concentrates
tively affects trust in Congress. on public management that increases efficiency (Peters &
In Model 4, the dependent variable is trust in the courts. Pierre, 1998). Public service is not just service and citizens
Congruent with Hypothesis 3, the coefficient of social are not just consumers of government services (Heintzman
equity is positive as anticipated. With respect to individual & Marson, 2005).
characteristics, men are less likely to trust in the court. The The relationship between social equity and trust in gov-
coefficient of education has a negative sign and is statisti- ernment can be explained by performance theory.
cally significant. Higher household income positively Performance theory rests on the assertion that the key to
affects trust in the courts. Being conservative positively understanding trust in government is government perfor-
affects trust in the courts. mance (Lee, 2018; Newton & Norris, 2000). When it
In Model 5, no significant effects were found for trust in comes to trust in government, it makes intuitive sense that
civil service. Thus, Hypothesis 4 is rejected. Older citizens citizens make judgments based on the government’s per-
are more likely to trust in civil service. Education, income, formance. Including social equity properly as government
and political ideology are positively associated with trust in performance makes possible a deeper understanding of
civil service. performance theory. “Citizens are entitled to expect parity
In Model 6, the dependent variable is trust in police. In line of treatment, regardless of their status or income” (Fieschi
with Hypothesis 5, social equity positively affects trust in & Heywood, 2004, p. 295). Assurance of equal treatment
police. Male citizens are less likely to trust police. Age, is an essential job of governing. Government should bol-
income, and political ideology positively affect trust in police. ster social equity and it redresses the outsized power of the
However, education is negatively related to trust in police. market. In particular, government needs to establish an
In sum, an examination of the impact of social equity on explicit target for social equity, just as many do with
trust in government reveals that not all government institu- efficiency.
tions are influenced by social equity. The coefficient of In addition, the fact that a citizen moderately makes gov-
social equity is significant and positive in court and police ernment responsible for specific assigned jobs is worth a
in the given models. This indicates that citizens put empha- comment. Government covers a wide range of institutions.
sis on the role of court and the police with respect to social To be more specific, executive government is consisted of
equity. People harbor distrust of the institutions of law and hundreds of department and sub-organizations. Theoretically,
order for low social equity. Dinesen and Jæger (2013) dem- researchers have some consensus that trust in government
onstrate that trust in the law-and-order institution such as has different meanings depending on a specific government
courts and police is different from that in the national gov- institution. However, in practice, it is doubtful whether citi-
ernment and Congress. Such divergent views imply that zen differentiates trust in various public organizations. This
citizens can distinguish which government institution is study offers limited evidence that citizen is cognizant of the
responsible for what. differentiation.
8 SAGE Open

It has been over four decades that Frederickson deplored Appendix. The Level of Social Equity of Countries Used in This
the lack of social equity in public administration. Although Study.
many aspects have been changed, there is much room to Country Social equity Number of respondents
improve in terms of social equity. The importance of front-
line workers should be emphasized. Earning citizen’s trust Argentina .622 1,003
depends on the frontline workers treating citizens with a Australia .718 1,813
high level of care and respect. Frontline workers should do Bangladesh .342 1,200
their best to treat citizens with public service ethos, with- Brazil .524 1,762
out prejudice. Frontline public servants like police can Chile .592 1,000
China (Hong Kong) .726 2,075
elevate social equity. It can help regain confidence in the
Colombia .482 1,520
government. Also, as a strategy of trust management, high
Ecuador .430 1,200
ranking public officers need to motivate their workers to
Ethiopia .370 1,230
work for the betterment of social equity.
Germany .804 1,528
Furthermore, this study offers practical implications for Greece .558 1,200
public performance measurement. Due to the influences of Guatemala .370 1,203
NPM, many government performance indexes are focused Indonesia .390 3,200
on quantifiable efficiency or effectiveness. Governments Japan .762 1,353
are often considered as being responsible for reducing South Korea .680 1,245
social vulnerability by promoting social equity (Gooden Malaysia .522 1,313
et al., 2009). Although social equity is considered an impor- Mexico .372 1,739
tant public value, it has been eclipsed by other government New Zealand .766 1,057
values such as efficiency and effectiveness (Charbonneau Nicaragua .356 1,200
et al., 2009). If government performance and its measure- Nigeria .472 1,237
ment include social equity or public value properly, the Peru .442 1,400
span and understanding of performance would enlarge Philippines .410 1,200
(Bryson et al., 2014). For instance, Wichowsky and Romania .596 1,257
Moynihan (2008) suggested perception of fair treatment, Russia .470 1,810
chance to voice concerns with program, responsiveness of Thailand .466 1,500
agency as intermediate outcome measurements. These Tunisia .570 1,208
changes will nudge public organizations to provide their Turkey .378 2,415
services by employing social equity elements. United States .556 2,596
As with any study, there are a number of limitations as Zimbabwe .388 1,215
well in this study. The present study has only utilized cross-
sectional data, which makes causal inferences weaker.
Temporal precedence is needed to clarify possible bi-direc- Declaration of Conflicting Interests
tional causes. Causal evidence on trust in government is hard The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect
to be established by cross-sectional data because the unmea- to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
sured macro factors influence trust. There can be macro-level
dynamics such as political scandals and economic crises. Funding
These unmeasured events possibly threaten the validity of The author(s) received no financial support for the research and/or
the conclusions. Researchers can come to more fully appre- authorship of this article.
ciate the impact on trust in government when they use longi-
tudinal data. ORCID iD
This study offers directions for the future studies. In man- Yunsoo Lee https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8246-740X
aging government performance, government may confront
trade-off between efficiency and equity (Hou et al., 2011). In References
this respect, Behn (2001) notices the accountability dilemma
that the trade-off between accountability for rules and for Afshartous, D., & de Leeuw, J. (2005). Prediction in multilevel
models. Journal of Educational and Behavioral Statistics,
performance can hinder responsiveness. Under value-con-
30(2), 109–139.
flicting circumstances, citizens may prioritize process over Andrews, R., & Entwistle, T. (2010). Does cross-sectional part-
outcome. For instance, Hetherington and Rudolph (2008) nership deliver? An empirical exploration of public ser-
show that political trust is a function of not only performance vice effectiveness, efficiency, and equity. Journal of Public
but also process. It is worth examining whether pursuing Administration Research and Theory, 20(3), 679–701.
social equity lowers an efficiency aspect of government Andrews, R., & Van de Walle, S. (2013). New public manage-
performance. ment and citizens’ perceptions of local service efficiency,
Lee 9

responsiveness, equity and effectiveness. Public Management Dooley, T. P. (2020). Searching for social equity among pub-
Review, 15(5), 762–783. lic administration mission statements. Teaching Public
Aydın, A., & Cenker, C. I. (2012). Public confidence in govern- Administration, 38(2), 113–125.
ment: Empirical implications from a developing democracy. Duch, R. M., Palmer, H. D., & Anderson, C. J. (2000). Heterogeneity
International Political Science Review, 33(2), 230–250. in perceptions of national economic conditions. American
Battaglio, P., & Legge, J. (2008). Citizen support for hospital Journal of Political Science, 44(4), 635–652.
privatization: A hierarchical cross-national analysis. Public Easton, D. (1965). A systems analysis of political life. John Wiley.
Organization Review, 8(1), 17–36. Fieschi, C., & Heywood, P. (2004). Trust, cynicism and populist.
Behn, R. (2001). Rethinking democratic accountability. Brookings Journal of Political Ideologies, 9(3), 289–309.
Institution Press. Frederickson, G. (1971). Toward a new public administration. In
Bergh, A., & Bjørnskov, C. (2014). Trust, welfare states and F. Marini (Ed.), Toward a new public administration: The
income equality: Sorting out the causality. European Journal Minnowbrook perspective (pp. 309–331). Chandler.
of Political Economy, 35, 183–199. Frederickson, G. (2005). The state of social equity in American
Blessett, B., Dodge, J., Edmond, B., Goerdel, H. T., Gooden, S. T., public administration. National Civic Review, 94, 31–38.
Headley, A. M., Riccucci, N., & Williams, B. N. (2019). Social Garrett, M., & Taylor, B. (1999). Reconsidering social equity in
equity in public administration: A call to action. Perspectives public transit. Berkeley Planning Journal, 13(1), 6–27.
on Public Management and Governance, 2(4), 283–299. Garson, D. (2013). Fundamentals of hierarchical linear and multi-
Blind, P. (2010). Building trust in government: Linking theory level modeling. In D. Garson (Ed.) Hierarchical linear model-
with practice. In G. S. Cheema & V. Popovski (Eds.), Building ing: Guide and applications (pp. 3–26). Sage.
trust in government: Innovations in governance reform in Asia Gooden, S. (2010). Social equity in public administration. In R.
(pp. 22–53). United Nations University Press. O’Leary, D. M. Van Slyke, & S. Kim (Eds.), The future of pub-
Bouckaert, G., & Van de Walle, S. (2003). Comparing measures of lic administration around the world: The Minnowbrook per-
citizen trust and user satisfaction as indicators of “good gover- spective (pp. 53–58). Georgetown University Press.
nance”: Difficulties in linking trust and satisfaction indicators. Gooden, S. (2015). From equality to social equity. In M. E. Guy
International Review of Administrative Sciences, 69, 329–343. & M. M. Rubin (Eds.), Public administration evolving: From
Box, R. (2015). Public service values. M.E. Sharpe. foundations to the future (pp. 210–231). Routledge.
Brewer, G. A., & Selden, S. C. (2000). Why elephants gallop: Gooden, S., Jones, D., Martin, K., & Boyd, M. (2009).). Social
Assessing and predicting organizational performance in fed- equity in local emergency management planning. State &
eral agencies. Journal of Public Administration Research and Local Government Review, 41(1), 1–12.
Theory, 10(4), 685–712. Guy, M., & McCandless, S. (2012). Social equity: Its legacy, its
Bryson, J., Crosby, B., & Bloomberg, L. (2014). Public value gover- promise. Public Administration Review, 72(Suppl. 1), S5–S13.
nance: Moving beyond traditional public administration and the Hakhverdian, A., & Mayne, Q. (2012). Institutional trust, educa-
new public management. Public Administration Review, 74(4), tion, and corruption: A micro-macro interactive approach. The
445–456. Journal of Politics, 74, 739–750.
Catterberg, G., & Moreno, A. (2006). The individual bases of political Hamidullah, M. F., Riccucci, N. M., & Pandey, S. K. (2015). Women
trust: Trends in new and established democracies. International in city hall: Gender dimensions of managerial values. The
Journal of Public Opinion Research, 18(1), 31–48. American Review of Public Administration, 45(3), 247–262.
Charbonneau, E., & Riccucci, N. M. (2008). Beyond the usual sus- Heintzman, R., & Marson, B. (2005). People, service and trust: Is
pects: An analysis of the performance measurement literature there a public sector service value chain? International Review
on social equity indicators in policing. Public Performance & of Administrative Sciences, 71(4), 549–575.
Management Review, 31(4), 604–620. Herian, M. N., Hamm, J. A., Tomkins, A. J., & Pytlik Zillig, L. M.
Charbonneau, E., Riccucci, N. M., Van Ryzin, G., & Holzer, M. (2012). Public participation, procedural fairness, and evaluations
(2009). The self-reported use of social equity indicators in of local governance: The moderating role of uncertainty. Journal
urban police departments in the United States and Canada. of Public Administration Research and Theory, 22(4), 815–840.
State & Local Government Review, 41(2), 95–107. Hetherington, M. (1998). The political relevance of political trust.
Clark, J. R. (2018). Designing public participation: Managing prob- American Political Science Review, 92, 791–808.
lem settings and social equity. Public Administration Review, Hetherington, M. (2005). Why trust matters: Declining politi-
78(3), 362–374. cal trust and the demise of American liberalism. Princeton
Clark, J. R., & Lee, D. R. (2001). The optimal trust in government. University Press.
Eastern Economic Journal, 27(1), 19–34. Hetherington, M., & Rudolph, T. (2008). Priming, performance,
Curran, P., & Bauer, D. (2007). Building path diagrams for multi- and the dynamics of political trust. The Journal of Politics, 70,
level models. Psychological Methods, 12(3), 283–297. 498–512.
de Leeuw, J., & Meijer, E. (2007). Introduction. In J. D. Leeuw & Hetherington, M., & Rudolph, T. (2015). Why Washington won’t
E. Meijer (Eds.), Handbook of multilevel analysis (pp. 1–75). work: Polarization, political trust, and the governing crisis.
Springer. University of Chicago Press.
Dinesen, P. T., & Jæger, M. M. (2013). The effect of terror on insti- Hibbing, J., & Theiss-Morse, E. (2002). Stealth democracy:
tutional trust: New evidence from the 3/11 Madrid terrorist Americans’ beliefs about how government should work.
attack. Political Psychology, 34(6), 917–926. Cambridge University Press.
10 SAGE Open

Holmberg, S., Lindberg, S., & Svensson, R. (2017). Trust in parlia- Popovski, V. (2010). Conclusion: Trust is a must in government.
ment. Journal of Public Affairs, 17(1–2), Article e1647. United Nations University Press.
Hou, Y., Lunsford, R. S., Sides, K. C., & Jones, K. A. (2011). Raudenbush, S. (1993). Hierarchical linear models and experimen-
State performance-based budgeting in boom and bust years: tal design. In L. Edwards (Ed.), Applied analysis of variance in
An analytical framework and survey of the states. Public behavioral science (pp. 459–496). Taylor & Francis.
Administration Review, 71(3), 370–388. Riccucci, N. (2009). The pursuit of social equity in the federal gov-
Inglehart, R., Haerpfer, C., Moreno, A., Welzel, C., Kizilova, K., ernment: A road less traveled? Public Administration Review,
Diez-Medrano, J., Lagos, M., Norris, P., Ponarin, E., Puranen, 69(3), 373–382.
B., et al. (2020). World values survey: All rounds –country- Rothstein, B., & Stolle, D. (2008). Political institutions and general-
pooled datafile version. JD Systems Institute. https://www. ized trust. The Handbook of Social Capital, 273–302.
worldvaluessurvey.org/WVSDocumentationWVL.jsp Rothstein, B., & Uslaner, E. (2005). All for all: Equality, corrup-
Johnson, N. J., & Svara, J. H. (2015). Social equity in American tion, and social trust. World Politics, 58(1), 41–72.
society and public administration. In N. J. Johnson & J. H. Scholz, J. T., & Lubell, M. (1998). Trust and taxpaying: Testing
Svara (Eds.) Justice for all: Promoting social equity in public the heuristic approach to collective action. American Journal
administration: Promoting social equity in public administra- of Political Science, 398–417.
tion (pp. 3–25). M.E. Sharpe. Steenbergen, M., & Jones, B. (2002). Modeling multilevel data
Jos, P. H. (2016). Advancing social equity: Proceduralism in the structures. American Journal of Political Science, 46(1),
new governance. Administration & Society, 48(6), 760–780. 218–237.
Kellough, J. E. (1998). The reinventing government movement: A Steijn, S., & Lancee, B. (2011). Does income inequality negatively
review and critique. Public Administration Quarterly, 22(1), affect general trust (Discussion Paper No. 20). Examining
6–20. three potential problems with the inequality trust hypothesis.
Lee, Y. (2018). The great recession, government performance, and Amsterdam, AIAS, GINI.
citizen trust. Journal of International and Area Studies, 25(1), Svara, J. H., & Brunet, J. R. (2005). Social equity is a pillar of pub-
57–70. lic administration. Journal of Public Affairs Education, 11(3),
Lee, Y. (2019). Gender equity and trust in government: Evidence 253–258.
from South Korea. Sexuality, Gender & Policy, 2(2), 132–142. Svara, J. H., & Brunet, J. R. (2020). The importance of social
Lee, Y., & Schachter, H. L. (2019). Exploring the relationship between equity to prevent a hollow public administration. The American
trust in government and citizen participation. International Review of Public Administration, 50(4–5), 352–357.
Journal of Public Administration, 42(5), 405–416. Thomas, C. (1998). Maintaining and restoring public trust in gov-
Ligthart, J. E., & van Oudheusden, P. (2015). In government we ernment agencies and their employees. Administration &
trust: The role of fiscal decentralization. European Journal of Society, 30(2), 166–193.
Political Economy, 37, 116–128. Thompson, F., & Riccucci, N. (1998). Reinventing government.
Lühiste, K. (2006). Explaining trust in political institutions: Some Annual Review of Political Science, 1, 231–257.
illustrations from the Baltic states. Communist and Post- Tolbert, C., & Mossberger, K. (2006). The effects of e-government
Communist Studies, 39(4), 475–496. on trust and confidence in government. Public Administration
McCandless, S., & Ronquillo, J. C. (2020). Social equity in profes- Review, 66, 354–369.
sional codes of ethics. Public Integrity, 22(5), 470–484. Torgler, B. (2003). Tax morale, rule-governed behaviour and trust.
Mossholder, K. W., Bennett, N., & Martin, C. L. (1998). A Constitutional Political Economy, 14(2), 119–140.
multilevel analysis of procedural justice context. Journal Tyler, T. R. (2010). Legitimacy in corrections: Policy implications.
of Organizational Behavior: The International Journal of Criminology & Public Policy, 9(1), 127–134.
Industrial, Occupational and Organizational Psychology and Uslaner, E. (2008). Trust as a moral value. In D. Castiglione, J. W.
Behavior, 19(2), 131–141. Van Deth, & G. Wolleb (Eds.), The handbook of social capital
National Academy of Public Administration. (2000). Standing (pp. 101–121). Oxford University Press.
panel on social equality, Issue paper and work plan. van der Meer, T. (2010). In what we trust? A multi-level study
Newton, K., & Norris, P. (2000). Confidence in public institutions: into trust in parliament as an evaluation of state characteris-
Faith, culture, or performance? In S. J. Pharr & R. D. Putnam tics. International Review of Administrative Sciences, 76(3),
(Eds.), Disaffected democracies: What’s troubling the trilat- 517–536.
eral countries (pp. 52–73). Princeton University Press. Van Ryzin, G. (2011). Outcomes, process, and trust of civil ser-
Pautz, M. C., & Wamsley, C. S. (2012). Pursuing trust in environ- vants. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory,
mental regulatory interactions: The significance of inspectors’ 21, 745–760.
interactions with the regulated community. Administration & Van Ryzin, G. (2015). Service quality, administrative process, and
Society, 44(7), 853–884. citizens’ evaluation of local government in the US. Public
Peters, B. G., & Pierre, J. (1998). Governance without govern- Management Review, 17, 425–442.
ment? Rethinking public administration. Journal of Public Vigoda-Gadot, E., Shoham, A., & Vashdi, D. R. (2010). Bridging
Administration Research and Theory, 8(2), 223–243. bureaucracy and democracy in Europe: A comparative study of
Piotrowski, S. J., & Rosenbloom, D. H. (2002). Nonmission-based val- perceived managerial excellence, satisfaction with public ser-
ues in results–oriented public management: The case of freedom vices, and trust in governance. European Union Politics, 11(2),
of information. Public Administration Review, 62(6), 643–657. 289–308.
Lee 11

Walker, R. M., Damanpour, F., & Devece, C. A. (2011). Management Wooldridge, B., & Gooden, S. (2009). The epic of social equity:
innovation and organizational performance: The mediating effect Evolution, essence, and emergence. Administrative Theory &
of performance management. Journal of Public Administration Praxis, 31(2), 222–234.
Research and Theory, 21(2), 367–386. World Justice Project. (2020). Rule of Law Index 2020.
Wang, X., & Van Wart, M. (2007). When public participation in Wroe, A. (2014). Political trust and job insecurity in 18 European
administration leads to trust: An empirical assessment of manag- polities. Journal of Trust Research, 4(2), 90–112.
ers’ perceptions. Public Administration Review, 67(2), 265–278. Yang, K., & Holzer, M. (2006). The performance–trust link:
Weatherford, M. S. (1987). How does government performance Implications for performance measurement. Public Administra-
influence political support? Political Behavior, 9(1), 5–28. tion Review, 66(1), 114–126.
Wichowsky, A., & Moynihan, D. P. (2008). Measuring how admin- Ziller, C., & Schübel, T. (2015). “The pure people” versus “the cor-
istration shapes citizenship: A policy feedback perspective rupt elite”? Political corruption, political trust and the success
on performance management. Public Administration Review, of radical right parties in Europe. Journal of Elections, Public
68(5), 908–920. Opinion and Parties, 25(3), 368–386.