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Corruption perception is essential to study because it can shape people’s attitudes toward the government. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to address this key question: what factors are associated with a non-expert’s judgment of whether Canada is corrupt?

This study uses the World Value Survey conducted in Canada in October 2020. This survey is based on a nationally representative sample of a cross-section of adult Canadian residents, including Canadian citizens and permanent residents and those who are neither Canadian citizens nor permanent residents.

Based on this study, some conclusions can be made. First, people accessing corruption news from the traditional news media are less likely than those receiving information from the new media to perceive the state (in this case, Canada) as corrupt. Second, people who have less confidence in public institutions are more likely to perceive a country as corrupt. Third, people who participate in electoral and non-electoral forms of political participation are more likely to perceive the state and its public officials as corrupt. Fourth, regardless of which political party is in power, individuals who lean right politically are more likely than those on the left to perceive the state as corrupt. Finally, immigrants are less likely than those born in Canada to perceive the state as corrupt. This work enriches the literature on the substantive understanding of the factors associated with corruption perception.

Studies investigating factors associated with public perception of corruption tend to focus on developing countries. The current study contributes to filling this gap in knowledge by examining correlates of corruption perception in Canada. As a result, this study contributes to the literature on factors associated with corruption perception, especially in the developed country context.

The purpose of this study is to explore the ideological gaps across a range of policing interactions with the public.

In a survey distributed via Mechanical Turk (MTurk) (n = 979), the authors explore the role that respondents' political ideology plays in the agreement of 13 aspects of policing services, their demeanor and decorum.

Attitudes toward policing interactions are slightly positive. Conservatives steadfastly hold positive attitudes about police. Liberals vacillate from negative to positive attitudes across the 13 policing interaction statements.

Although small, there is an ideological consensus that police adequately protect citizens and are knowledgeable about the law.

Even at record lows of public confidence in the police, some subsections of the sample, such as conservatives, firmly hold positive attitudes about police. The unwavering support for police by conservatives continues across the multi-item measure of policing interactions, whereas liberals illustrated less uniformity in their attitudes.

The purpose of this study is to gain a broad understanding of public perceptions of the police and violence.

This study uses survey data collected from a nationally representative sample (N = 1,223) by the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) Center for Public Affairs Research at the University of Chicago. Descriptive, bivariate correlational and multivariate regression analyses of the data were conducted.

Descriptive analyses show the populace is equally concerned about the police use of violence and violence against the police, but bivariate analyses indicate the two types of concern are unrelated, and multivariate regression analyses show that few variables impact both types of concern. Consistent with prior research, young people and racial/ethnic minorities reported greater concerns about police violence than did older adults and Whites, yet neither age nor race/ethnicity impacted concerns about violence against the police. Perceived mistreatment by the police was the only variable which impacted perceptions of police violence and violence against the police in a consistent and cogent manner.

This study is the first to examine public perceptions of the police as both the agents and victims of violence. The results indicate public perceptions of the police are more complex than was previously believed.

COVID-19 is a global pandemic that was unprecedented in human history. The scale of infection was unusual with most countries succumbing to this disease. Various mitigation plans were introduced by governments around the world to contain the spread of the virus. The Southeast Asian region is not spared from the harmful effects of COVID-19. Most Southeast Asian countries responded swiftly to COVID-19 by introducing stringent policies such as contact tracing, mandatory quarantine, restriction of movements, cancellation of public events, health screenings, and border closures early on to tackle the rapid spread of the virus. The adoption of technology for contact tracing such as MySejahtera (Malaysia), TraceTogether (Singapore), PeduliLindungi (Indonesia), Mor Chana (Thailand), and Stay Safe (Philippines) shows the rapid response from the governments to contain the spread of COVID-19. The variation in the degree of success stories at different timelines in managing COVID-19 in the region indicates that COVID-19 management requires short and long-term planning, especially in the public health policy. In the case of Malaysia, the first phase of movement control order (MCO, 18–31 March 2020) took place on the background of political turmoil. The newly formed government under the leadership of Muhyiddin Yasin announced the first phase of lockdown in Malaysia to control the rising number of COVID-19 cases. The lockdowns then evolved into different forms at different phases of implementation until it was announced on 8 March 2022 that the country is transitioning to the endemic phase on 1 April 2022. This study shows that the respondents to our survey during the first phase of MCO are highly aware of the government’s initiatives to manage COVID-19 and the Malaysian public has a high level of trust and confidence in the government’s initiatives. The stringent measures taken by the government in the first wave of COVID-19 were seen as a necessity and it provided legitimacy to the government despite being the first unelected government in Malaysian history.

The author studies the determinants of public trust in government doctors and hospitals (DH) – a crucial indicator of the quality of a country's healthcare system – in India by analyzing the India Human Development Survey (IHDS) 2011–2012.

The author uses descriptive statistics and a set of ordered probit regression models controlling for a set of individual-specific, household-level and other covariates and analyze across heterogeneous contexts (national/rural/urban/male heads/female heads/social groups).

Across contexts, people reporting a great deal of trust in private DH (PDH) are significantly more likely to report a great deal of trust in government DH. Those people with a great deal of trust in government schools to provide good education (vis-à-vis people with only some trust in government school) have significantly higher likelihood of reporting a great deal of trust in government DH. Visiting a private doctor last time (vis-à-vis a government doctor) makes reporting higher trust levels in government DH less likely.

India's healthcare system is afflicted with several resource allocation problems and low public trust issues are indicative of misgovernance. In presence of limited state capacity, ubiquitous corruption and underwhelming institutional trust, understanding the factors influencing public trust in healthcare providers is critical to designing appropriate trust-enhancing public health policies.

Given the sparse empirical literature on public trust in healthcare systems in the developing countries such as India, this study is a pertinent contribution as the study explains the determinants of public trust in DH using a comprehensive unit-recorded household survey dataset.

A central question of public administration is how political principals secure the cooperation of administrators within organisational frames and contexts; increasingly, rational influences are being considered alongside bounded rationality and non-rational influences. This paper aims to explore the intent of New Zealand’s Public Service Act 2020 in managing administrative behaviour.

The methodology is primarily ethnographic, combining emic and etic perspectives. A mixed-methods approach comprises participant observer field notes and meeting documentation, substantiated by official documents; documents were analysed thematically and triangulated with other data sources.

The Public Service Act introduces new bounds on administrative behaviour. The stated rationale for these changes reveals an attempt to set limits on the principal–agent relationship between politicians and administrators and causes predictable deviations from rational behaviour by cultivating public service motivation and a unified public service identity.

As the legislation in question was only passed in 2020, it is too early to definitively assess the ultimate impact of legislation on administrative behaviour. This case study demonstrates that behavioural approaches to public administration are being applied intentionally by governments. The choice architecture created in the case study blends rational, bounded, and non-rational influences. Together, this produces a bricolage of semi-relevant theories from other disciplines, especially psychology, to explain administrative behaviour. Further refinement is needed to develop a cohesive and comprehensive theory of administrative behaviour that can account for contemporary practice.

Administrators act as agents of political principals, within ethical and rules-based limitations and influenced by public service motivation and social identity. Shifting from implicit to explicit choice architecture does not negate possible tensions between bounds and can signal them more explicitly. Shared symbols are sometimes intended to influence identity and therefore adherence to behavioural norms.

This paper explores the manipulation of choice architecture as a viable strategy for altering behaviour for the better and, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, is the first known instance of choice architecture being “legislated in” rather than merely “showing through”. This study illustrates the blending of rational, boundedly rational and non-rational factors into a choice architecture for public administrators that help mediate the biases and challenges of principal–agent relationships (which form a cascade in New Zealand’s public administration system).

This study investigates the factors that influence citizens trust in public leaders [i.e. presidents, members of parliament (MPs) and local government leaders (LGs)] in 34 countries in Africa between 2019 and 2021.

Individual-level data with a sample size of 48,084 was obtained from the Afro-Barometer round 8 survey only and analyzed using multivariate binary logistic regression.

Several important and intriguing observations were made from this analysis: (1) the performance of public leaders influences citizens trust in their leaders; (2) the perceived corruption of public leaders and civil servants and the level of corruption influence citizens trust in public leaders; (3) perceived neighborhood problems (i.e. fear of violence, fear of terrorism and service delivery) influence citizens trust in their public leaders and (4) the socio-demographic characteristics of citizens (i.e. age, religion, education, location, employment and political party affiliation) influence citizens trust in their public leaders.

This study is exceptional in two ways: (1) it examines and compares citizens trust in public leaders across different levels, i.e. presidents, MPs and LGs in Africa and (2) it examines and compares the factors influencing citizens trust in public leaders in Africa comparatively.

This paper aims to analyse COVID-19 indices and blockchain features on Bitcoin and Ethereum returns, respectively. The authors focus on the most used and owned cryptocurrencies that cover Europe, the US and Asian countries.

An autoregressive distributed lag panel (pooled mean group and mean group) is utilized, and a robustness check is incorporated by using a Random Effect Model and Generalized Method of Moments (GMM).

Four new findings were discovered, including (1) the vaccine confidence index (VCI) pushes economic recovery and increased demand for the Bitcoin market, but the opposite result was interestingly observed from Ethereum; (2) the blockchain features were revealed to be essential to Bitcoin, while they were irrelevant to Ethereum for short-run country-specific results; (3) the hash rate and network difficulty moved inversely during the pandemic; and (4) the government played a significant role in taking action during uncertain times and regarding cryptocurrency policies.

VCI is constructed by the most used vaccine type in our sample countries (i.e. Pfizer), as the data for a specific classification by each type is still unavailable.

Providing an evenly distributed vaccination program primary vaccination series against COVID-19 to the citizens is an essential duty of the government. Bitcoin policymakers and investors should watch the COVID-19 vaccine distributions closely as it will affect its return. Ethereum is emphasized to keep developing its smart contract which appeared to outplay other blockchain features. Cryptocurrency investors should be wise in their investment decisions by analysing the news thoroughly.

This research emphasizes that the success in the roll-out of COVID-19 vaccination requires citizens' willingness to participate and their trust in the vaccine's efficacy. Such self-awareness and self-discipline in society can ultimately empower individuals and stabilise the economy. Nevertheless, the implementation of health protocols is still highly required to prevent the spread of new variants of COVID-19.

This is the first study that attempts to construct a VCI which denotes the confidence derived from the administration of full-dose COVID-19 vaccines (an initial vaccine and a second vaccine). The authors further find the impact on cryptocurrency returns. Next, blockchain size is utilized as a new determinant of cryptocurrencies.

This study aims to investigate the correlation between public trust and the performance of collaborative e-governance, with a particular emphasis on trust in government institutions as the central aspect of inquiry. It assesses how public trust influences e-governance performance through the lens of good governance principles, encompassing evaluations of trust in government services and trust in the technological infrastructure used for citizen services.

The research framework is based on a thorough literature review, pilot study and practical experience. An empirical survey was conducted using a structured questionnaire to collect primary data from individuals who have used specific e-governance projects. To conduct the survey, the author used the snowball sampling method both offline and online. The author analysed the data using SmartPLS Version 3 to assess the measurement and structural model.

The study rigorously examines and confirms all formulated hypotheses using robust statistical analyses. Nonetheless, the results underscore the pivotal significance of the reliability and utility of e-governance services in nurturing public trust. Furthermore, the research unveils a troubling concern pertaining to the absence of tailored responses to citizen inquiries, grievances and recommendations, indicating an area of vulnerability in the effort to cultivate public trust.

The research has implications for managers, citizens and researchers. It focuses on public trust in interaction-based collaboration, but researchers may extend it to other forms like content-based collaboration. Policymakers can implement the findings in present and future e-governance projects. Limitations include a moderate sample size, country context, and not assessing other factors that may influence public trust in collaborative e-governance performance.

This study contributes to the existing body of knowledge by exploring the link between good governance, public trust and collaborative e-governance performance. It focuses on projects that require physical visits to government offices, where public trust has been impacted. This study is unique because it assesses public trust in collaborative e-governance, specifically in the context of India, where there is limited prior research on this topic exists.