Article Review of The Institutional Trust Paradox in Bangladesh

1. Article Review of
The Institutional Trust Paradox in
Bangladesh
Askvik, S., & Jamil, I. (2013). The institutional trust paradox in
Bangladesh. Public Organization
Review, 13(4), 459-476.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11115-013-0263-6
Sandeep Ghimire
263/2019
CDPA

2. Title
• Article "The Institutional Trust Paradox in Bangladesh" authored by
Steinar Askvik & Ishtiaq Jamil was published in 2013 in Public
Organization Review
• The title of article was relevant to the content of the article.

3. Introduction
• In introduction section this article explained objective of article.
• This article gauge the level of institutional trustworthiness of
government institute by Bangladeshi people and compare it with
expert view.
• Authors explained that as per survey Bangladeshi have high level of
trust toward government institution, whereas experts suggested that
public have low trust towards public institution which shows paradox
of governance trust.

4. Research Question
• They have address two main questions:
• To what extent do public institutions in Bangladesh appear as trustworthy
• what is the current pattern of institutional trust in Bangladesh?

5. Variables
Dependent Variable
• Trustworthiness
Independent Variable
• Credible commitments
• Benevolence
• Honesty
• Competency
• Fairness

6. Methodology
• Document Review and Secondary data analysis
• Experts have adopt a model of institutional trustworthiness proposed by Kim.
Considering following five dimension: Credible commitments, Benevolence,
Honesty, Competency, Fairness.
• Authors compare data from World Values Survey (1996 and 2006) and Trust
Survey (2009).

7. Findings (Expert)
• Experts has find that low trustworthiness of intuition in
Bangladesh.
• They found that intuitional actors don’t honor their
commitments and be consistent the way they enforce policies.
• civil servants are interested in their personal interest in rather
than public.
• Due to weak accountability public institution are not honest
with general population they tend to hold back information with
them.
• Politician are less competence compare to civil servants.
• Citizens are not treated equally there is discrimination especially
among minorities and women.

8. Findings(Survey)
• The data shows that people have high trust among higher judiciary,
army, parliament and central government whereas lowest in police.
• Civil servants and Politician are not perceived to be very trustworthy.

9. Discussion
• Survey data shows that public institution are trustworthy
whereas expert's analysis suggest that Bangladeshi institution are one
of the corrupt.
• 70% disagree that politicians do what is right most of the time and
only 30% agree with this statement. The results do not match with
trust people have in parliament and central government. It may
be due to the way they see institution and politicians differently.

10. • Poor and illiterate have strong reasons to trust the government. As
there is progress in alleviating poverty, education and health services.
• Due to national culture of power distance there is trust among public
institutions. Due to large power distance citizens are incline to accept
inequalities in different social context and respect those holding state
power regardless of how they use that power.

11. Article Gap
• In Survey, Institutions are divided into four category according to
responses. Respondents how have more than 87% confidence is in 1st
category, 81-77% in 2nd category, 59-43% in 3rd category and 16% in 4th
category. On what basis the category are divided is not clearly mentioned
in article.
• The result of trust survey is not representative as there are estimated 45%
illiterate in Bangladesh and the survey sample covers only 1% illiterate.
• In Expert analysis, model proposed by Kim rests on a liberal, idealized and
normative conception of what will make people trust public institution
• Methodology of analysis by experts and survey were different so the result
can also be different.

12. Conclusion
expert's observation claims that public office holders are not
trustworthy whereas trust survey shows people have trust in public
institutions. The study shows gap between observed intuitional
trustworthiness and reported trust patterns of people.