The Process of People's Trust in Government Performance in the Coronavirus Crisis

Abstract

Today, the spread coronavirus in Iran and around the world has become a social issue and in turn has revealed the position, function and importance of the institution of states. This article aims to sociologically analyze public trust in government performance in the situation of the corona outbreak using the theories of Sztompka and Bernad Barber. The research method is "survey" and its statistical population consists of people above 15 years old in Iran in 2020. The sample size of the research was estimated to be 1600 people using Cochran's formula and the sampling method is "multi-stage sampling". Findings show that people's trust in the state in preventing the coronavirus stems from behaviors and instrumental expectations towards the political system as well as the value component of trust around the country's health system. Specifically, the people's trust in the political system, which is an instrumental trust, is of the "basic trust" type; In contrast, trust in medical and health system, which is based on moral expectations as well as value trust, has increased greatly. Also, in the study of public trust in government performance, it was found out that the trust mechanism consists of components of both types of trust; In other words, when people interact and cooperate with the government, they gradually observe individual and collective health behaviors and criticize less. This, in turn, provides the opportunity for people’s cooperation.

Keywords

• social trust
• government performance
• corona crisis
• instrumental trust
• value trust