Institutional trust and its connection with governance quality and performance: Understanding the East and Southeast Asian paradox

This study analyses Asia Barometer Survey 4, which covers 14 East and Southeast Asian countries, and finds that lower-performing countries such as Vietnam and Myanmar have higher trust in government compared to better-performing countries like Japan and South Korea. To understand this puzzling trend, this study analyses the data further and finds that higher authoritarian cultural orientation (ACO) (unquestioning obedience) contributes to having higher institutional trust in the sample countries. The study also finds that people with higher ACO evaluate different performance and governance indicators more positively; for example, they think their government is doing better economically or that it has fewer corruption-related problems.