Document Type : Original Article
Highlights
One of the most important challenges of public administration is maintaining and promoting public trust in government organizations. The emergence and strengthening of citizens' public trust in government organizations depends on the image of government organizations in the minds of citizens. Therefore, public trust in government organizations is enhanced when citizens' mental image of government organizations is positive.
Trust is based on an expectation. Violation of these expectations distorts trust. Mistrust occurs when suspicion arises. Based on this, public trust means that the public expects the officials and employees of government organizations to respond positively to their expectations with their actions in interaction with the public. In this interaction, there is a kind of insecurity and unfamiliarity with the way things are done in government organizations. In other words, public trust means people's expectation of receiving a favorable response from the people in charge of public affairs to their demands.
All governments of any nature must be sensitive to the relationship between themselves and citizens; Because public trust is very important for any political system. The implementation of public policies requires the effective cooperation and cooperation of citizens, which is reflected in the existence of public trust.
In examining and explaining the category of public trust and the factors affecting it, one should not only consider the direct factors related to public trust. The theorists of this field believe that effective, efficient, responsive and well-performing governments succeed in gaining public trust in the society. In addition to these researches, other researches have also been proposed in the field of political trust, which have listed indirect factors such as political participation, social trust, domestic and foreign media, and the like as factors affecting public trust in governments or political trust. Such factors are sometimes not directly related to the current functioning of governments and are affected by a set of internal and external factors, of which the government is one of them.
In order to create and improve the positive image of these organizations in the minds of citizens, government organizations must clarify their performance. Reducing unnecessary costs, reducing systemic and non-systemic corruption (such as bribery, embezzlement, smuggling, and money laundering), reducing extravagance and wastage, promoting the responsibility and accountability of officials, increasing the decision-making power of the government and increasing its capacity, contributing to the participation of the people in various monitoring supplies. , decision-making and dozens of other benefits of creating or increasing transparency. Clarification is the cheapest, fastest and simplest tool to fight against various problems that target the efficiency and authority of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
They should also strengthen and institutionalize public accountability so that, in practice, the gap between citizens and agents will disappear. Public accountability is one of the main factors in creating public trust in citizens, and citizens' trust has a close relationship with government accountability. Public trust is people's expectation from the government and government organizations to perform certain behaviors. Answering government officials to the people about their actions and decisions is one of the most important behaviors expected by the people. If people see the public accountability of government officials, their public trust in the government and government organizations will increase, and on the contrary, unresponsiveness is the main cause of distrust.
The existence of government and non-profit organizations without proper effectiveness, inefficient and unresponsive is one of the main factors of the general problems of such organizations. A high level of trust does not eliminate accountability, but rather gives managers freedom of action and leads to the delegation of more authority. Accountability of the government and government organizations in Iran is of double importance; Because the government in Iran is fat and rich, it should shrink and be able to use the existing facilities properly and in the way of public welfare.
