A review of 18 studies suggests that responsive local services are more consistently linked to public trust than transparency or formal accountability alone.
Researchers reviewed quantitative studies published from 2010 to 2025, finding 18 that met their criteria for evidence from the sub-national level. The eligible studies were published between 2017 and 2025 and examined links between governance practices and trust in local governments.
Responsiveness showed the strongest and most consistent association with trust. Transparency appeared less effective when it was not accompanied by service delivery, while formal accountability mechanisms sometimes had negative associations with trust. The review found that citizen satisfaction, perceived performance and effectiveness could help explain these relationships.
What builds local trust
Responsiveness was the governance practice most consistently and strongly associated with public trust in local governments. The review found that transparency and accountability had conditional relationships with trust: transparency was ineffective without service delivery, and formal accountability mechanisms sometimes showed negative associations. Governance practices were also linked to trust indirectly through citizen satisfaction, perceived performance and effectiveness.
Overall, the synthesis suggests that people’s trust is more closely related to administrative competence and tangible results than to procedural requirements alone. The review focused mainly on high-need and transitioning settings, including Somalia, Ethiopia, Nepal, Indonesia and China, while also drawing comparative evidence from Switzerland, Japan and Israel.
Why service results matter
The findings suggest that adopting formal rules or disclosure practices may not be enough to build public trust if local governments do not respond effectively or deliver services. They also indicate that the way people evaluate governance may depend partly on whether those practices produce results they can see and experience.
Because the review includes settings with different starting levels of institutional trust, it also highlights that the same governance practice may be judged differently in different political and administrative contexts.
Evidence and caveats
This was a quantitative systematic review that followed PRISMA 2020 guidelines and synthesized 18 empirical studies. The evidence shows associations between governance practices and trust; it does not by itself establish that a particular practice causes trust to rise or fall.
The search covered publications from 2010 through 2025, but no eligible quantitative sub-national studies were identified before 2017. Most of the included research came from high-need or transitioning environments, so the findings may not apply in the same way to all local governments. The abstract does not provide pooled effect sizes or further details about the methods used to combine the studies.
// Source
Discover Global Society · 2026 · DOI: 10.1007/s44282-026-00558-5
Authors: Ahmed-Nor Mohamed Abdi, Aaron Ayeta Mulyanyuma, Julius Niringiyimana
Institutions: Makerere University, SIMAD University
