Abstract
Governance at the local level is at the frontline of African endeavours to complete the Millennium Development Goals. Following the third wave of democratisation in Africa, many new democratic states pursued a strategy of decentralising central governments, empowering local authorities to eradicate poverty and improve citizens’ quality of life. Public trust in local government, however, is often low on the continent. When a public institution is distrusted by the public, citizens are unlikely to cooperative with that institution. Using South Africa as a case study, this paper examines attitudinal determinants of public confidence in local government in order to understand how trust in these political institutions can be improved. Using public opinion data from the South African Social Attitudes Survey (SASAS) for the period 2003–2012, the chapters finds that public trust is driven by satisfaction with service delivery, political efficacy and political knowledge.
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Notes
- 1.
In the Constitution of South Africa, Chap. 7 states that a subnational government must “structure and manage its administration and budgeting and planning processes to give priority to the basic needs of the community, and to promote the social and economic development of the community.” In addition, local governments were to encourage “the involvement of communities and community organisations in the matters of local government” (Republic of South Africa 1996).
- 2.
Putnam (2000) has argued that a tight reciprocal relationship between civic engagement and social capital with those social trusters more involved in their communities. Given the purported association between these two concepts, it is important to control for social trust in a study of public confidence in local government.
- 3.
For a review of social attitudes in South Africa and a discussion of the lasting impact of the country’s pre-transition history on these attitudes, see the work by Du Toit and Kortze (2011).
- 4.
The exact wording of these questions is as follows: (i) “Generally speaking, would you say that most people can be trusted, or that you cannot be too careful in dealing with people?”; (ii) “Do you think that most people would try to take advantage of you if they got the chance, or would they try to be fair?”; and (iii) “Would you say that most of the time people try to be helpful or that they are mostly looking out for themselves?” These questions are derived from the European Social Survey.
- 5.
These statements were as follows: (i) Whether I vote or not makes no difference; (ii) After being elected all parties are the same, so voting is pointless; (iii) It is the duty of all citizens to vote; and (iv) Voting is meaningless because no politician can be trusted.
- 6.
Age was measured using a continuous variable coded as age of the respondent in years at the time of interview. Gender (1 = female; 0 = male) and Racial status (black African, Indian, “coloured” and white) were captured using sets of dummy variables.
- 7.
If civic contact is included in a base model (not shown) without political interest, political knowledge or the Voting Inefficacy Index then the variable is a highly salient predictor of public confidence in local government. It is apparent, therefore, that the more politically aware and interested individuals are the more likely they are to have civic contact.
- 8.
This contradicts the finding by Askvik (2008), using 2006 data, that citizens’ ethnic identities was a strong explanatory factor in understanding how much citizens trusted their national, provincial and local governments. Mishler and Rose (2002, 8) argue, ‘political attitudes are continuously updated and adjusted as initial beliefs are contradicted, tempered or reinforced by later experiences’. The observed difference between my study and Askvik may indicate a shift in attitudes between 2006 and 2012.
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Gordon, S.L., Roberts, B.J., Struwig, J. (2015). Trusting the Coalface: Public Trust in South African Local Government and the Millennium Development Goals. In: Andrews, N., Khalema, N., Assié-Lumumba, N. (eds) Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in Retrospect. Social Indicators Research Series, vol 58. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16166-2_5
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