Emprical Results

Trust in Ministries

We asked citizens to assess their trust in ministries in the following questions: How much do you trust the ministries listed below? Thus, they evaluated their calculated trust for each ministry. The purpose of this question was to measure citizens' overall confidence in them. We used a Likert scale with five options (1 for very strong trust, 2 for quite strong trust, 3 for difficult to say, 4 for little trust, and 5 for no trust at all). In order to help citizens to answer, we described concisely the basic mission or function of every ministry. Table 1 illustrates the results. In it the options of 1 and 2 are combined under trust and options 4 and 5 are combined under lack of trust.

Table 1: Citizens' Trust in Ministries

Ministries	Trust [*]	Lack of trust [**]	Difficult to say	Mean deviation
	%	%	%	%
Ministry of Defense	45	29	27	+0.33
Ministry of Education	34	39	28	-0,11
Ministry for Foreign Affairs	32	35	33	-0,14
Ministry of the Interior	30	37	33	-0,15
Ministry of Justice	30	46	24	-0,20
Ministry of Finance	29	44	27	.0,27
Ministry of Transport and Communications	27	38	35	-0,27
Ministry of Social Affairs and Health	27	44	28	-0,29
Ministry of the Environment	24	46	32	-0,30
Ministry of Trade and Industry	23	40	27	-0,33
Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry	19	42	39	-0,36
Ministry of Labor	15	53	32	-0,42
Prime Minister's Office	14	40	46	-0,57
Average	27	41	32
[*]very strong trust + quite strong trust [**]little trust + no trust at all

Table 1 shows that the ministries are not especially strongly trusted. They are probably less trusted than might generally be hoped for in a democracy. One must also notice that about every fourth respondent has chosen the "difficult to say" option, which means that trust evaluation has been difficult for them. Citizens trust most in Defense, Education, and Foreign Affairs. Least they trust in Labor and Agriculture. As to Defense and Interior, our results differ from studies showing that an overwhelming majority of citizens trust the armed forces (Defense) and the police (Interior) (see, for instance, Bouckaert et al., 2000, p. 13). This could mean that in their political calculation citizens can differentiate between those who serve and those who manage them. Table 1 shows also the mean deviations for ministries when the option "difficult to say" has been coded as zero. It gives us a very gloomy picture of the level of citizens' trust in ministries. Only Defense is on the positive side, other ministries being clearly on the negative side in the measurement of trust.

Table 2 shows the cross-tabulation between trust and socio-economic variables. Ministries are in Table 2 in the same order as in Table 1. Thus I depicts for Defense, II for Education and XIII for Prime Minister's Office. Men seem to trust ministries more often than women. Younger respondents seem to have more trust in ministries than the middle-aged and senior citizens. The more educated people are, the more they trust ministries. Politically and socially active people have more confidence in ministries than passive citizens. Our statistics also demonstrate that confidence in ministries has concentrated in the southern and western part of the country more than in the east and north of the country. Percentages are formed in Table 2 by combining option 1 (very strong trust) and option 2 (quite strong trust).

Table 2: Cross-Tabulation Between Trust in Ministries and Socio-Economic Variables (%)

Variables	I	II	III	IV	V	VI	VII	VIII	IX	X	XI	XII	XIII
Men	51	32	33	33	30	34	30	26	23	28	20	17	15
Women	31	36	32	26	29	22	25	29	25	18	17	14	13
Age 18–30	48	46	38	29	34	28	37	29	32	29	21	16	14
Age 31–49	46	34	34	33	36	32	30	30	28	26	20	18	16
Age 50 >	43	28	29	29	23	27	23	25	18	19	16	11	11
Less than university	39	26	26	24	21	21	23	24	20	16	13	13	9
University education	51	41	40	37	39	37	33	31	29	31	24	17	19
Political right	61	35	39	35	37	42	31	24	18	41	18	13	17
Political middle	43	36	33	30	33	29	31	29	29	22	22	16	15
Political left	45	41	38	39	31	32	29	37	32	24	18	20	16
Middle class	54	37	39	37	38	39	32	33	29	33	20	18	21
Workers	42	28	26	23	27	21	21	21	22	17	16	13	12
Entrepreneurs	45	30	30	27	27	26	28	26	17	29	26	15	10
Pensioners	37	31	28	28	25	29	26	30	20	18	19	10	9
Politically passive	35	23	20	19	19	16	20	20	17	15	11	12	10
Observers	47	31	36	27	29	29	25	25	24	20	16	11	12
Politically active	53	50	43	46	42	43	41	40	34	37	29	24	21
Work in public sector	47	37	30	34	38	28	23	33	27	18	19	15	15
Work in private sector	48	29	34	28	29	30	29	23	23	32	21	15	15
Small municipalities	34	22	26	24	23	21	26	27	19	17	19	16	8
Medium municipalities	48	35	30	28	30	29	25	26	26	22	18	14	11
Big municipalities	46	41	41	37	33	35	33	30	27	31	20	16	23
Southern Finland	46	33	37	31	32	30	28	28	26	26	17	15	16
Western Finland	41	37	28	31	28	28	29	31	24	22	21	18	11
Eastern Finland	44	30	27	23	25	27	26	20	22	20	17	9	13
Northern Finland	46	28	32	30	28	27	25	24	20	21	15	14	12

In order to put the ministries into a wider perspective, we also measured citizens' trust in other socially and politically relevant institutions. (Here the same question with the same Likert scale was posed to citizens in which 1 is for very strong trust, 2 for quite strong trust, 3 for difficult to say, 4 for little trust, and 5 for no trust at all.) Percentages are formed in Table 3 by combining option 1 (very strong trust) and option 2 (quite strong trust).

Table 3: Citizens' Trust in Socially Relevant Institutions

Institutions	The level of trust
	%
Police	75
Armed forces	64
Electronic media (radio, TV)	55
Universities	55
Churches	41
Newspapers	39
Courts of law	37
Trade unions	34
Cabinet	34
Parliament	32
Home municipality	31
Average of the ministries	27
Big companies	18
The European Union	13

According to this, citizens trust the police and the armed forces more than other institutions. These results speak for our assumption that citizens are able to differentiate the service dimension from organizational dimensions. They also indicate citizens' critical attitude towards the ministries' leadership in policy-making. Citizens sympathize with and appreciate people in the service.

The second important observation in Table 3 is that all political institutions are doing badly in comparison to other socially relevant institutions. Only big companies deviate from this as if in anticipation of their coming problems. About one third of respondents trusts Parliament, the cabinet, and their own municipality. It is a surprise to see that the level of confidence in the European Union is extremely low in our survey; only about one in ten reports trusting it. It is difficult for us to explain this with our survey material.

As a whole citizens trust the ministries surprisingly little as central policy-makers. This observation is in line with our finding, according to which all political institutions are quite low in terms of citizens' confidence. Third, it seems that citizens can make a difference between service and the management of service, the ministries representing the latter. It is natural for citizens to be critical because it keeps political and administrative policy-makers on the alert for their practical concerns and potential reactions. It is acceptable that citizens do not trust, but how low can the level of trust go before the situation becomes unhealthy in a democracy?

Trust in Value Capability of the Ministries

Values are yardsticks by which people evaluate organizations and the operations of the ministries. Values clarify their missions and ways of accomplishing them. It seems to be that people are more and more concerned not only about what ministries do, but also about how they do it. Values have made their way into the management structure of ministries in the form of new public management. This means that it is legitimate to evaluate to what extent citizens trust the ministries' capability to uphold a number of commonly accepted values in their policy-making operations.

We asked our respondents to give their answer to the following question: How well do you trust that ministries uphold the values listed below. We used a five-point Likert scale (1 extremely well, 2 moderately well, 3 difficult to say, 4 moderately poorly and 5 extremely poorly). We derived 20 values from various ministry documents. Percentages are formed in Table 4 by combining option 1 (very strong trust) and option 2 (quite strong trust).

Table 4: Citizens' Trust in the Value Capability of the Ministries

Values	Trust in the values
	%
Law abiding action	46
Expertise	42
Incorruptibility	33
Impartiality	23
Respect for democratic rules	22
Consistency of action	19
Fairness	19
Honesty	18
Keeping promises	12
Openness	12
Efficiency	11
Promotion of citizens' interests	11

Nearly every other citizen reported that they believed that ministries are law-abiding in their policy-making. By doing so, they stay within constitutional limits and practice their democratic creed. Citizens are also of the opinion that the ministries show expertise in their work. After that, the results become less flattering: About every third respondent believes in the incorruptibility of the ministries in spite of observations that Finland belongs to the club of least corrupt countries in the world.

About one citizen in five believes in ministries' impartiality and respect for democratic rules. These results seem to be in conflict with our first observation above, but this is not the case. The law-abiding value expresses a general assessment of policy-making, meaning that ministries stick to the rules under which they operate. The low level of impartiality, respect for democratic rules and also consistency of action describes the way in which people expect ministries to treat them in different cases. In other words, citizens think that ministries could have the upper hand when in contact with them. This interpretation is supported by the low level of trust in ministries' fairness, honesty, keeping promises, openness and promotion of citizens' interests and it may describe feelings of powerlessness among citizens.

Values are in Table 5 in the same order as they are in Table 4. Thus I is for law-abiding action, II is for expertise and XII is for promoting citizens' best interests. Percentages are formed in Table 5 by combining option 1 (very strong trust) and option 2 (quite strong trust). According to our cross-tabulation, women are more critical of the value capability of the ministries than men. Only in expertise did women report more trust than men. We found again that younger respondents more often trust different values than middle-aged and senior citizens. Politically and socially active citizens reported more trust than passive people. Education increases trust in values. Citizens living in the south and west of Finland trust more often than people in the east and north of the country. These results concur with our previous results on citizens' overall trust.

Table 5: Cross-Tabulation Between Trust in Values and Socio-Economic Variables (%)

Variables	I	II	III	IV	V	VI	VII	VIII	IX	X	XI	XII
Men	48	42	36	26	26	20	22	22	16	16	11	12
Women	44	44	28	18	20	17	16	14	7	9	11	8
Age 18–30	59	55	38	23	33	22	26	23	12	18	14	21
Age 31–49	48	45	34	23	25	21	18	18	13	12	11	10
Age 50 >	39	34	29	24	17	15	17	18	11	11	11	6
Less than university	38	37	25	22	17	17	15	16	11	12	11	9
University education	56	49	40	24	29	21	23	21	13	13	11	12
Political right	63	48	47	36	35	19	29	32	20	14	7	17
Political middle	45	44	32	20	25	20	16	18	11	15	12	10
Political left	49	50	36	32	23	24	25	21	16	16	16	16
Middle class	55	46	39	24	29	20	22	20	14	11	9	9
Workers	40	39	30	25	17	18	15	16	10	13	11	9
Entrepreneurs	43	44	32	18	19	18	12	22	7	13	8	4
Pensioners	36	32	27	20	14	18	14	17	9	9	15	6
Politically passive	39	34	26	17	19	14	15	13	8	12	9	10
Observers	49	44	36	23	22	18	19	18	12	11	11	9
Politically active	51	50	37	30	28	26	23	25	16	16	15	12
Work in public sector	48	41	31	21	19	16	18	15	9	10	12	8
Work in private sector	48	43	38	25	26	20	19	23	13	12	8	9
Small municipalities	36	36	23	18	18	17	13	20	7	13	11	10
Medium municipalities	43	42	30	24	21	17	20	14	14	13	12	10
Big municipalities	58	50	42	28	31	21	22	26	13	14	10	11
Southern Finland	50	46	41	25	29	22	24	23	15	13	11	12
Western Finland	40	40	25	24	21	17	16	16	9	12	11	11
Eastern Finland	50	44	30	21	17	20	15	16	11	13	15	8
Northern Finland	40	36	22	18	14	12	12	13	7	11	8	6

These results provide good reason for ministries to consider critically the ways in which they act in policy-making. The good news is that as a whole the ministries stay within the law. The bad news is that in their assessments, citizens are uncertain of the way they will be treated by ministries and how unfeelingly their own concerns would be dealt with by them. To citizens, ministries appear remote, chilly, and unfeeling. They seem to be beyond citizens' influence. This may accrue from the hierarchical position and high emphasis on professionalism of the ministries.

According to our findings, citizens do not trust as strongly as could be hoped in the value capability of the ministries. They must take their message seriously. It is not enough for them to stick to their old ways and habits in order to win people's hearts and minds. There seems to be a discrepancy between what the ministries say they do and what they really do. And it is not sufficient for them to argue that they have their organization in good order.

Trust in Citizen Orientation

Citizen orientation describes the way in which citizens think ministries take into account their concerns and issues (Harisalo & Stenvall, 2001, pp. 118–119). This is not a problem only for public organizations, but also for private companies. It is an exaggeration to argue that citizen orientation represents a revolution for all public organizations, but it does contain a grain of truth. The basic mission of a public organization is to serve citizens and promote the interests of society as well as possible. Of course organizations which take care of the administration of law, services, and developing functions have different opportunities to serve citizens and think of their best interests (Niemi-Iilahti, Stenvall & St hlberg, 2002, pp. 118–121).

We are interested in citizen orientation in terms of how citizens evaluate the ability and willingness of the ministries to listen to their concerns, pay adequate attention their demands, and inform them about their future decisions and plans. Table 6 depicts the responses to these questions, which were measured with a five-point Likert scale (1 agree totally, 2 agree somewhat, 3 difficult to say, 4 disagree somewhat and 5 disagree totally).

Table 6: Trust in Citizen Orientation

Claims	Agree [*]	Disagree [**]	Difficult to say
	%	%	%
Ministries listen adequately to the needs and problems of citizens	6	76	18
Ministries pay sufficient attention to needs and problems in their policy-making	7	73	21
Ministries inform citizens satisfactorily of their planning and development ideas	8	71	21
Ministries think of citizens' best interests	16	56	28
[*]agree totally + agree somewhat [**]disagree somewhat + disagree totally

In Table 6, options one and two have been combined under agree and options four and five are combined under disagree. Table 6 indicates that citizens are inclined to doubt the ability and willingness of ministries to pursue and promote citizen orientation. This observation supports our reasoning above about value capability. There is no proximity, but distance between citizens and ministries. Citizens seem to be of the opinion that they may have no specific role in the policy-making processes of the ministries. They are not listened to, their needs and problems are not taken care of, and they are not informed about future policies. In spite of these problems, seven citizens out of ten think that basically the ministries try to do some good for them.

Trust in the Regulatory Powers of Ministries

The ministries make regulations for public and private organizations. It is the task of government to create, maintain and renew the judicial framework for society by which citizens and companies can develop their activities and solve their problems peacefully and simultaneously. The power to regulate may bring about either positive or negative unintended consequences for society. If government cannot provide a judicial framework and a rule of law for society, the markets may compensate for the inherent deficiencies of regulation with market-driven rules and norms (see especially Leoni, 1991, pp. 70–73; De Soto, 1989, pp. 173–177).

In our study, we analyzed to what extent citizens trusted the regulation powers of the ministries. This is a problem for central administration because, for instance, the OECD report states that regulation is too extensive and exhaustive in Finland (OECD, 2000, p. 146). The second reason people are wary of regulation is that citizens' equality before the law has been the most important feature of the state governed by the law, and legal arbitrariness and the invisible decay of stable judicial condition are threatened when people are not sure what they are allowed to do.

We measured citizens' trust in the regulatory power of the ministries with five claims using a five-point Likert scale (1 agree totally, 2 agree somewhat, 3 difficult to say, 4 disagree somewhat and 5 disagree totally). In Table 7 options one and two are combined under agree and options four and five are combined under disagree.

Table 7: Citizens' Trust in Regulatory Power of Ministries

Claims	Agree [*]	Disagree [**]	Difficult to say
	%	%	%
Ministries hold citizens equal before the law	22	57	22
Ministries do their best to treat citizens properly	25	53	22
Ministries follow laws and rules based on justice and moderation	40	29	31
Ministries avoid causing unnecessary legal costs to citizens	12	57	31
Ministries apply regulation in the interests of citizens in conflict situations	9	60	31
[*]agree totally + agree somewhat [**]disagree somewhat + disagree totally

According to Table 7, it is possible to argue that citizens hesitate to trust in regulation. About one in five is of the opinion that ministries hold citizens equal before the law they apply. Every fourth respondent says that regulation forces the ministries to treat him or her appropriately. One in ten thinks that the ministries are not causing them unnecessary costs by appealing to regulation even if it could be possible for them and that ministries interpret rules for the best interests of citizens in conflict situations. It is important to recognize that citizens are of the opinion that the ministries as a whole operate within the laws and rules and practice moderation. This observation concurs with our previous result.

As a whole, the picture we have drawn of citizens' trust in regulation is consistent with what we have already said: Citizens do not overwhelmingly trust ministries as regulators. Our results should warn ministries to reassess their powers to introduce new legislation and supervise it. This is because regulation seems to be on a gradual rise. Policy-makers could bear in mind that citizens and groups may react differently to regulation than expected. If they do, regulation will bring about unwanted and unintended consequences to society.

Trust in the Financial Transfers of Ministries

Ministries design and administer different financial transfers for citizens, associations, and companies. Financial transfers are significant tools for promoting political objectives in society. It is generally accepted that the state can give financial support for appropriate purposes and sometimes it is indispensable for the state to alleviate severe social problems and help people in real and unanticipated needs.

We measured citizens' trust in the financial transfers of the ministries with five claims using a five-point Likert scale (1 agree totally, 2 agree somewhat, 3 difficult to say, 4 disagree somewhat and 5 disagree totally). In Table 8, which shows the result, options one and two are combined under agree and options four and five are combined under disagree.

Table 8: Trust in Financial Transfers of Ministries

Claims	Agree [*]	Disagree [**]	Difficult to say
	%	%	%
Ministries are just and equal in making financial transfers for different purposes	10	57	33
Ministries give financial transfers for acceptable purposes	18	41	41
Ministries' transfers to different purposes are usually based on reasonable arguments	33	26	42
[*]agree totally + agree somewhat [**]disagree somewhat + disagree totally

The basic message concerning trust in financial transfers is in the line with our previous results: Citizens do not have confidence in them. They seem to trust the arguments on which transfers are located. About every third respondent is of this opinion. One out of five trusts that ministries allocate funds for acceptable purposes, while one in ten thinks that ministries administer transfers justly and equally.