Abstract
This paper maps institutional trust in Bangladesh and analyzes to what extent citizens perceive public institutions to be trustworthy. According to a number of expert evaluations, public and political institutions in Bangladesh do not stand out as very trustworthy. Yet, despite such expert evaluations, recent survey data indicate that popular trust is quite high in certain major institutions such as the parliament and the central government. Since it is misplaced, the high level of popular institutional trust presents a paradox. It implies some kind of blind or naive trust, which may be dysfunctional for the emergence of a democratic governance system.
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Notes
Nazma Akhter, president of Sommilito Garments Sramik Federation (United Garment Workers’ Federation) said, “It seems that workers [in garment factories] have no rights and dignity in Bangladesh”. The Bangladesh Garment Manufacturer Export Association (a trade body representing garment manufacturer and exporters) had utterly failed to protect the workers, she said. “It [the BGMEA] formed committees just for show. None of its reports has ever blamed factory owners for any accidents”, said Akhter (The Daily Star, 1 May, 2013 http://www.thedailystar.net/beta2/news/owners-probe-owners-fault/ [Accessed 1 May 2013]
This study is based on a country-wide door-to-door questionnaire survey including 2,000 households conducted in 2009 in Bangladesh. The method was personal interview with a person who is 18 or above in a household. After selecting 21 districts from 6 divisions (Dhaka, Chittagong, Rajshahi, Khulna, Barisal, and Sylhet) and deciding the number of interviews from a district, the sample was again divided on the basis of upazila (or sub-district), and respondents were randomly selected from households from 43 upazilas. Sample distribution is presented in the appendix.
Samaj literally means society in Bangla language.
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Askvik, S., Jamil, I. The Institutional Trust Paradox in Bangladesh. Public Organiz Rev 13, 459–476 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11115-013-0263-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11115-013-0263-6