Exploring the impact of good governance on citizens' trust in Pakistan

In democratic governments, administrative ethical practices have always been recognized as a critical tool for determining the good governance and a crucial element to be incorporated in building citizen trust. In this context, the purpose of this research is to assess how unethical actions affect the Good Governance practices in developing citizens' trust. Field survey was conducted by sending questionnaires to 1000 Pakistani citizens who were above the age of 20, having minimum education of high school diploma. The response rate was 53.3%. The results confirmed the causal relationship between good governance and citizen trust and a negative moderating effect of unethical actions. The findings may be practically useful for both research and policy making, since it investigated the citizens' perspective of good governance, citizen trust and unethical behavior. The findings emphasize addressing the ethical modeling and re shaping of the behavior of public sector specifically in Pakistan, hence, it opens the way for future studies on the reflection of ethics and culture on good governance and citizen trust.