Bukele versus the Salvadoran Parliament: COVID-19 Monetary Transfer and its Impact on Trust

This paper measures the effects of an unconditional monetary transfer on citizens’ trust in the pandemic management by the Salvadorian president and parliament during the COVID-19 crisis. To the authors’ knowledge, this represents the first study to explicitly examine trust in both the legislative and executive branches simultaneously during COVID. Understanding trust in government institutions is crucial for effective emergency policy implementation, as heightened trust levels may lead to greater voluntary compliance with public health regulations. The study employs a nationwide probabilistic sample collected in April 2020, analyzing 1,222 respondents and relies on a quasi-experimental Mahalanobis matching method to assess the impact of the monetary transfer on trust levels. Results reveal a significant positive effect on presidential trust, indicating that emergency COVID-19 policies can enhance public confidence. Conversely, the monetary transfer shows no significant effect on trust in the parliament, which can be attributed to heightened political tensions between the Salvadorian executive and parliament, populist governance, and a clientelist approach in the context of the upcoming 2021 elections. These findings emphasize the importance of examining different government branches when assessing public trust, particularly in contexts of internal political tensions. The study advocates for an expanded research agenda that includes various government branches and relevant private institutions. Future research should further explore the impacts of additional emergency measures on public trust in El Salvador.