Can IT Help Government to Restore Public Trust?: Declining Public Trust and Potential Prospects of IT in the Public Sector

During the past four decades, public trust in governments has continued to diminish due to various administrative, political, socio-cultural, economic, and mass media causes. Focusing on the administrative dimension, this study explores selected administrative factors to the declining of public trust, including public perception of administrative corruption (lack of transparency), inefficiency (wastefulness), ineffectiveness, and policy alienation. We argue that information technology (IT) can offer potentially useful tools to governments and help them to restore public trust by enhancing transparency, cost efficiency, effectiveness, and policy participation. This argument is illustrated by four selected mini cases (OPEN system in Seoul, eVA in Virginia, eFiling for IRS tax returns, and online policy forums in Seoul and Pennsylvania). Despite a generalizability problem, this study offers a cautious but positive view on the potential contribution of IT in restoring pubic trust.