An empirical survey on factors affecting citizens’ trust in public institutions in the Eastern province of Sri Lanka

Abstract

Although Sri Lanka made attempts to adopt policies of decentralization and democratic governance to enhance citizens’ trust, the efforts had yielded very little success. As such, this study attempts to assess the level of citizens’ trust in public institutions in the eastern province of Sri Lanka and explores the factors contributing to the decline of citizens’ trust in public institutions. Both qualitative and quantitative methods consisting of questionnaire survey, in-depth-interview and focus group discussion as data collection techniques were employed in this study. Overall, it was found that the people have little trust in the public institutions due to lack of awareness, discrimination in terms of ethnicity, undue delay, lack of modern facilities and political influence. Thus, it is paramount on the part of government to address these challenges to restore the trust among the citizens on these public institutions.