Citizens’ trust in public administration: an Israeli perspective on the spirits of trust in public service

We offer a discussion on citizens’ trust in public administration in rapidly changing societies. Based on experience gained over more than two decades of longitudinal studies conducted under the National Assessment Project of Public Administration in Israel (NAPPA-IL), we try to portray some key questions and observations about the centrality of trust for public administration in democracies of our times. We look at theoretical and empirical materials accumulated since the early 2000s to analyse the major building blocks of trust in public administration, illustrating its centrality and its potential relationship with public sector managerial quality, performance, citizens’ satisfaction, citizenship behaviour, and other democratic values. We argue that the spirit of trust matters for public administration and that it has a major role in shaping the nature of democracies, especially in the digital era.