Institutional trust

Several items were included in the survey questionnaire to establish the levels of trust that exist in various governmental or civil society institutions. The institutions investigated were the national government, the courts, labour unions, provincial governments, the media, the police, the defence force, political parties, local government, business, churches and the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC). Trust was measured by means of a six-point Likert-type scale with the following dimensions: Strongly trust, neither trust nor distrust, distrust, strongly distrust and don't know. Non-governmental institutions such as the church, the media and - to a lesser extent - business were trusted more by the South African public than most governmental institutions. It is furthermore of interest that business, although often criticised by labour unions and other organisations that are said to represent "the people", enjoyed relatively high trust among sub-divisions of the population.