Institutional Trust, Corruption, and Democracy: Relationships Based on People’s Perceptions Worldwide

This article investigates the relationships between corruption, democracy and trust in government, emphasizing the effect of societal norms that support corruption on these relationships. The empirical analysis uses data collected by the World Value Survey (Round 7) about citizens’ evaluations and perceptions about these issues. The findings show that social norms that see corruption as legitimate weaken the negative effect of actual institutional corruption on institutional trust. Furthermore, a weakening of democracy encourages institutional corruption that then reduces institutional trust. These moderating–mediating relationships also hold when including individual and country-level factors. Thus, the view that corruption is destructive to trust and to the quality of government is conditioned by people’s norms and beliefs. Our findings can help explain popular support for and the public legitimacy of politicians who engage in corrupt behavior in various countries, and more generally, the weakening of democratic systems and values all over the world.