This Friday, the Minister of Finance, Mario Marcel, headed the launching of the study “The determinants of trust in Chile's public institutions”, carried out by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The research, which was presented by the OECD's Director of Public Governance, Elsa Pilichowski, analyzes in depth the factors that determine citizens' trust in the government, municipalities, the police and political parties, among other bodies in the country.

The document -which was prepared within the framework of the State Modernization Agenda 2022-2026- states that although democratic institutions have allowed Chile to have a constant and stable economic development in the country, trust in these entities has decreased and with it, weakened “the Government's capacity to generate consensus on complex political reforms”. Among the main results obtained from more than 50 interviews, the text shows that “only one in three people in Chile (30%) has a high or moderately high level of confidence in the national government, and 24% report high or moderately high confidence in the Civil Service, compared to 39% and 45%, respectively, on average among OECD countries”.

In addition, the study indicates that “as in most of the member countries of this organization, Chilean citizens trust the police (52%) and local governments (municipalities, 36%) more than the national government (30%), while political parties (14%) and Congress (19%) are the institutions with the least trust among the people. And when it comes to justice institutions, only 25% of respondents expressed high or moderately high trust, that is, 29 percentage points below the OECD average (54%)”.

In comparison with the other OECD countries, the document points out that “citizens in Chile are less satisfied with public services, including their reliability and fairness. In addition, only 22% of people believe that the Chilean political system allows people like them to have a voice in what the government does, and 35% consider it likely that they will have opportunities to express their concerns about local issues.

Analysis

During the presentation of the study, which took place at the MBA Building of the Pontificia Universidad Católica (PUC) in downtown Santiago, the Director of Public Governance of the OECD, Elsa Pilichowski, addressed the results of the study and said: “I would like to summarize two basic things about trust in public institutions. There are gaps that remain and that are important, particularly in trust in the Civil Service and the Judiciary. It is very important to face this in the future because they are gaps where great dividends can be obtained since they are central institutions for the functioning of democratic institutions. This is a key issue.

“On the other hand, in terms of confidence in the government's ability to face complex challenges on issues such as climate change or digitization, Chile has advanced in some solutions and is ahead of many other OECD countries. This is very significant for Chile going forward. Personally, I have been watching these changes very closely and there are important lessons for other countries,” he added.

Then, during the panel discussion moderated by the director of the Secretariat of State Modernization of the portfolio, Isabel Millán, Minister Marcel, sociologist Eugenio Tironi and the OECD director commented on the results of the case study. The Minister of Finance commented that “the study shows the differences in trust we have in very basic institutions of the Republic. It seems to me that the gap in terms of trust in the Judiciary and the Parliament is very worrying because the relationship is the inverse of that of other countries. Usually there is more confidence in the courts than in the Government, here it is dramatically the other way around, but let's be clear that the Government is also below the average”.

“And the other thing that calls my attention is the gap in trust in public officials because normally, what one finds in OECD countries is that there is more trust in public officials than in the government”, the authority mentioned.

Meanwhile, the academic and member of the Advisory Council of the PUC School of Government, Eugenio Tironi, said that “there is a dimension that must be considered, which is the deficit of legitimacy of the media. It is particularly low and the media, however obsolete they may seem, are great builders of public opinion, of mood, they are the great mechanism of communication among the elites, they are the public square of debate. And the absence of a media ecosystem with authority and legitimacy is a major problem for trust in institutions”.

Patricio Donoso, UC's Vice-Chancellor of Institutional Management, inaugurated the event and said that “as stated in the State Modernization Agenda of the current government, it is key for our country to regain confidence in public institutions. Without trust, governance becomes more complex, and the sustainability of public policies is weakened. As Catholic University we are available to contribute to this immense challenge for Chile”.

During the closing remarks, the mayor of Quinta Normal and president of the Chilean Association of Municipalities, Karina Delfino, said that “the importance of trust in institutions is fundamental. Likewise, strengthening the work in the territories and the daily management that municipalities throughout Chile carry out to solve the problems that afflict ordinary citizens”.