This report provides a comprehensive perspective of what drives trust in public institutions in 2023 by asking people in 30 OECD countries about their experience with, and expectations of public institutions at all levels of government. The second OECD cross-national Survey on Drivers of Trust in Public Institutions was carried out in late 2023.

With nearly 60,000 responses, the survey investigated how people's expectations and experiences with government influence their trust in public institutions. These experiences and expectations range from day-to-day interactions with public institutions to government decision making on complex policy issues. The report identifies some of the main drivers of trust in government and other public institutions and discusses opportunities for policy action.

For the first time, the report also analyses how trust levels and drivers have evolved in the 20 OECD countries that participated in the 2021 survey and how an information environment marked by an increasing amount of polarising content and disinformation affects people’s trust in public institutions.

Key findings

• Across the 30 countries, the share of people with low or no trust in the national government (44%) outweighs the share of those with high or moderately high trust (39%).
• Trust in the police, the judicial system, the civil service and local government is higher than in national government, with respectively 63%, 54%, 45% and 45% of people having high or moderately high trust in these institutions, while national Parliament and political parties elicit lower levels of trust (37% and 24% respectively).
• There is a clear divide between trust levels in the day-to-day interactions with public institutions, which remain relatively robust on average and in many countries, and trust in the government’s ability to make the important decisions on complex policy issues with tradeoffs across different groups in society.