Principal investigator: Omar Barroso Khodr
Authors: Colt Jensen and Jaclyn Piatak (2026)
Original title: Authoritarian Attitudes and Public Service Motivation: Examining Trust Across Levels of Government in the United States
Location of the Intervention: United States of America (USA)
Sample Size: 801 Observations
Primary Variable of Interest: Trust in the government
Type of Intervention: Metrics of trust in governments and institutions
Methodology: Interviews and ordinal logistic regression
Summary
Amid growing public distrust in the U.S. government, understanding what shapes citizens' views of different levels of government is essential to gaining support and credibility. This study investigates how authoritarian attitudes—defined as preferences for conformity, obedience, and conventional social order over autonomy and independent thought (Feldman & Stenner, 1997)—affect trust in federal, state, and local governments. Based on data from the 2023 Cooperative Election Study, the authors found that authoritarianism is significantly associated with greater trust in federal and state governments, but not in local governments, even controlling for political ideology. Furthermore, they explored how these dynamics are moderated by motivation for public service (MSP): individuals with high levels of both MSP and authoritarianism exhibit unique patterns of trust. A higher MSP corresponds to higher levels of trust across all spheres of government and amplifies trust among the most authoritarian. These findings offer theoretical and practical insights into how individual attitudes and motivations condition public trust in federalist systems.
- Policy Problem
The main political issue this study seeks to address is the worrying and long-lasting decline in public trust in the United States government, which began in the 1960s and has worsened in recent years. The authors highlight a specific nine-percentage-point drop in favorable perceptions of state and local governments between April 2019 and December 2023. This is a critical problem because public trust is considered essential for democratic governance. Without it, governments are forced to resort more intensely to coercion—costly and dangerous—or to excessive appeals to self-interest. Thus, understanding the factors that drive trust (or distrust) is a prerequisite for reversing this negative trend.
Secondly, the most contemporary political issue is the growing relevance of authoritarian attitudes among the American public following the 2016 presidential election. This study seeks to understand how this specific psychological predisposition—characterized by a desire for order, hierarchy, institutional control, submission to authority, and aversion to outside groups—interacts with the multi-level federal system of the United States.
Thus, the central question is whether these attitudes lead citizens to trust powerful, centralized governments (federal and state) more than decentralized and fragmented local governments. Answering this question is crucial for policymakers and administrators who need to understand how changes in public psychology can affect legitimacy and cooperation with different levels of government.
Thus, the study addresses a complex issue in public administration theory: the boundary conditions of MSP. Although MSP—the predisposition to help others through public institutions—is generally seen as a positive and pro-social force that increases trust, the authors raise a critical concern. They question whether, in an era of increasing authoritarianism, individuals with high MSP may channel their motivation in ways that prioritize institutional control and conformity at the expense of democratic responsiveness.
Finally, the authors consider whether MSP might not uniformly serve democratic governance, potentially leading to public support for government actions that undermine democratic values. Understanding this possible dark side of MSP is vital to ensuring that public sector reforms aimed at fostering MSP do not inadvertently strengthen authoritarian tendencies.
- Policy Implementation Context
This study is implemented within a specific political, psychological, and administrative context in the United States. The context is marked by two simultaneous trends: the growth of authoritarian attitudes in the public—especially after the 2016 election—and a prolonged decline in trust at all levels of government. This dual trend generates a central enigma for public administration, which the study seeks to resolve.
In this context, the authors situate their work within the lineage of Adorno et al.'s F-Scale (1950), which was criticized for confusing authoritarianism with political ideology. Later measures, such as Altemeyer's Right-Wing Authoritarianism Scale (RWA), have refined the analysis, but still haven't completely separated authoritarianism from social conservatism.
Additionally, the study adopts a more refined approach: pairs of values in child-rearing (e.g., curiosity versus good manners), developed by Feldman and Stenner (1997). This tool captures the neutral dimension of authoritarianism—the need for order, certainty, security, and adherence to conventional institutions—without the biases of previous instruments. This choice ensures that the conclusions about trust reflect authoritarian predispositions, not partisan inclinations.
Thus, the research starts from the premise that trust is not monolithic. Citizens distinguish between local, state, and federal governments based on their characteristics. Local governments are fragmented, decentralized, and lack autonomy and capacity. In contrast, state and federal governments are centralized, resource-rich, hierarchically structured, and symbolically authoritarian—embodying force and control.
Thus, the authors suggest an asymmetrical effect, in which more authoritarian attitudes reduce trust in local governments (without centralized control), but increase it in state and federal governments. MSP—predisposition to serve society through public institutions—is generally associated with greater trust in government. However, this study uniquely investigates its boundary conditions.
Finally, according to the authors, "Authoritarians" value strong institutions for order and control; individuals with high MSP value the effectiveness of services. The study tests whether these distinct motivations combine to increase trust at the state and federal levels. The central question is: does high MSP increase trust in centralized institutions only when associated with authoritarian attitudes, or does it operate independently? This interaction is the main innovative contribution of the study design.
- Evaluation Details
The authors seek to dismantle several established premises. First, they question the conflation between authoritarian attitudes and political conservatism or right-wing ideology. By criticizing older instruments—such as the F-Scale and the Right-Wing Authoritarianism Scale—for failing to distinguish authoritarianism from social conservatism, the study adopts a refined and ideologically neutral instrument. This allows for an assessment of whether authoritarian attitudes exert a unique and independent effect on trust, separate from political ideology.
Secondly, the study dismantles a monolithic view of declining trust in government. Instead of assuming that authoritarianism produces widespread distrust, it tests an asymmetrical relationship: high levels of authoritarianism correlate with lower trust in decentralized local governments, but with higher trust in centralized, resource-rich state and federal governments. This challenges the notion that authoritarianism leads to uniform trust or distrust across all levels of government.
Third, the study addresses a conceptual tension present in existing research: individuals with a high degree of authoritarianism often hold right-wing views but distrust the government. The study assesses the possibility of authoritarianism operating independently of ideology. Thus, a conservative with a high degree of authoritarianism may trust centralized federal authority as a source of order, even when their conservative ideology predisposes them to distrust federal power.
Finally, the study dismantles a purely altruistic view of Motivation for Public Service (MPS). It tests whether a high MPS, combined with a high degree of authoritarianism, produces amplified trust in hierarchical institutions. This suggests that MPS may not uniformly serve democratic governance.
- Method
The study used data from the 2023 Cooperative Election Study (CES), a nationally representative survey conducted by YouGov and coordinated by Harvard and Tufts Universities, with 24.500 participants. The authors included specific questions about trust in government, motivation for public service (MSP), and authoritarian attitudes in a subset of 1.000 respondents. After excluding cases with missing data on key variables, the final analytical sample totaled 801 respondents. This sample was designed to represent the United States population through a stratified sampling approach.
In this context, to measure the main dependent variable—trust in government—respondents rated their trust in the federal, state, and municipal levels of government regarding their ability to “perform their responsibilities well.” Responses followed a four-point ordinal scale, ranging from “no” to “a lot” of trust. Independent variables included authoritarian attitudes, measured by a validated set of four binary forced-choice questions comparing values related to child-rearing (e.g., “curiosity” versus “good manners”).
In this way, these pairs capture the respondent's preference for conformity, order, and obedience over autonomy and independence: the authoritarian response received a score of 1, and the non-authoritarian response, 0. The second main independent variable, motivation for public service (MSP), was measured using a well-established five-item additive scale (originally from Perry, 1996), with high internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha = 0,819). The analysis also controlled for several individual and contextual factors: political ideology (five-point Likert scale, from "very liberal" to "very conservative"), political knowledge, income, education, professional status, marital status, presence of children, race/ethnicity, gender, and region (South).
Finally, given that the dependent variable (confidence) was measured on an ordinal scale, the authors initially considered ordinal logistic regression. However, Brant tests indicated a violation of the parallel odds assumption. In response, they employed stereotyped logistic regression—a method that relaxes this assumption and proves more suitable to the data structure. Multicollinearity checks confirmed that no correlation exceeded an absolute value of 0,4, demonstrating that multicollinearity did not compromise the model estimates.
- Main results
The study presented several important findings. The first finding was regarding the direct effect of authoritarian attitudes on trust; the results were mixed. In line with the authors' hypotheses, authoritarian attitudes were positively associated with trust in state and federal governments. However, the study found no significant association between authoritarian attitudes and trust in local government—rather than the predicted negative relationship. The authors suggest that this null result may reflect the fact that local trust is driven more by direct experiences with services than by psychological needs for hierarchical control.
Additionally, the study found that MSP was positively associated with trust at the subnational and federal levels, in line with previous research. However, unlike previous studies that found non-significant results for trust in the federal government, this study observed a positive and significant relationship between MSP and federal trust. The authors attribute this difference to the change in government (from Trump to Biden).
Third, the interaction between political self-efficacy (PSE) and authoritarian attitudes was significant at all three levels of government. Among individuals with low self-efficacy, an increase in PSE resulted in modest gains in confidence (approximately 7 percentage points more in the high confidence rating). In contrast, among individuals with high self-efficacy, the same increase in PSE was associated with a substantial increase of more than 40 percentage points in the high confidence rating, while the likelihood of reporting no confidence fell by an equivalent margin.
Thus, these results indicate that authoritarianism significantly amplifies the effect of AEP on trust. Notably, individuals with high levels of authoritarianism and AEP were most likely to express trust in the government, while those with high authoritarianism but low AEP were less likely.
Finally, among the control variables, political ideology consistently predicted trust: more conservative individuals reported lower levels of trust in the government. Other consistently significant factors across multiple models included having minor children and identifying as Black (compared to White), with these effects observed primarily at the federal level.
- Lessons in Public Policy
The findings of this study challenge the normative assumption that decentralization inherently strengthens democratic legitimacy through proximity and responsiveness. For citizens with authoritarian tendencies who prioritize order and security, fragmented local governance may be perceived as ineffective and unreliable. This suggests that the central promise of federalism—building legitimacy through institutional diversity—may be subtly undermined for a significant portion of the public.
Subsequently, the study reveals a deeper tension in the theory of MSP. Although MSP is typically associated with altruistic and democratic ideals, the amplified trust observed among individuals with high MSP and a high degree of authoritarianism raises concerns. Drawing on concepts of bureaucratic authority and “administrative malpractice,” the authors warn that well-intentioned public servants may prioritize institutional loyalty over democratic accountability when authoritarian dispositions converge with commitment to public service. Under certain conditions, this dynamic can undermine, rather than support, democratic governance.
Additionally, for policymakers and administrators, the study argues against a one-size-fits-all approach to rebuilding public trust. Interventions that emphasize local engagement or participatory reforms may not be well received by citizens predisposed to view centralized authority as more legitimate. At the local level, where authoritarian attitudes do not predict greater trust, administrators may need to emphasize institutional competence, clear lines of authority, and visible coordination with state and federal agencies.
In this context, at both state and federal levels, trust built on deference to authority can be fragile if performance falters or if political transitions disrupt stability. Promoting public service values through civic education and service-oriented messaging can be a particularly effective lever for rebuilding trust among populations where it is low.
Finally, the study points to several limitations and directions for future research. The cross-sectional design prevents causal inferences, and it remains uncertain whether similar patterns exist in other federal systems. The data were collected during a period of heightened political polarization, which may have influenced trust levels. Longitudinal research is needed to distinguish the effects of stable dispositions from context-dependent variation. Despite these limitations, the authors conclude that recognizing the psychological foundations of public trust is crucial for sustaining the long-term democratic viability of federal systems.
References
Feldman, S., & Stenner, K. (1997). Perceived threat and authoritarianism. Political Psychology, 18(4), 741–770. https://doi.org/10.1111/0162-895X.00077
