Building Municipal Trust: Corruption, Transparency, and Public Services in Chile

This article examines the extent to which high-quality public services, transparency, and corruption are related to citizens’ trust in Chilean municipal governments. Based on Chilean municipal data from 2008 to 2018, we find that public services quality, corruption and democratic quality have an impact on citizens’ trust on municipal governments. In contrast, municipal transparency is not followed by increasing trust. As practical implications, municipalities should enhance trust by actively involving citizens in municipal issues and by increasing the effectiveness of transparency mechanisms, in line with the predictions of the Theory of the Effective Transparency .