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Accepted Paper:
Victor Sokari (Niger Delta University, Wilberforce Island, Nigeria)
Paper short abstract:
Through a constituency service advocacy lens—a critical interface between parliamentarians and constituents—this study examines how Yiaga Africa’s 2022 constituency service outreach provides nuanced insights into the determinants and dimensions of public trust in Nigeria's democratic governance.
Paper long abstract:
Public trust in fragile representative democracies is conceptualised as an arena of relationships between state actors (parliamentarians) and citizens (mostly vulnerable constituents) in a growing democracy and how they connect, engage, and build consensus on policies that reflect mostly the values of the former. Recent calls including the role played by civil society organisations (CSOs) through constituency service advocacy in addressing citizens’ declining trust in the state, have become critical in understanding the mechanisms through which public trust is cultivated and eroded in a fragile representative democracy such as Nigeria. Through an analysis of constituency service advocacy—a critical interface between elected representatives and constituents—this study measures how Yiaga Africa’s 2022 constituency service outreach programme in Osun State provides nuanced insights into the determinants and dimensions of public trust in Nigeria's democratic governance. Drawing on the Yale persuasive theory of communication and a set of semi-structured interviews with purposively selected constituents, legislators and officials/interns of Yiaga Africa the study sheds light on the factors that influence constituents’ trust in democratic governance, ranging from service delivery effectiveness/responsiveness to accountability, and transparency in Nigeria. Additionally, the study unpacked how in measuring constituents’ trust in democratic governance and its gains, constituency service advocacies are shaped by complex networks of interaction driven by local and external factors. These complex networks need to be understood and diagnosed to fully describe the healthiness of democracy and its import for development in a fragile democracy like Nigeria.
Keywords: Public Trust Constituency Service Yiaga Africa
Leaving no one behind: citizen participation and access to services in an era of declining public trust in the state
Session 1 Wednesday 26 June, 2024, -