Rebuilding citizen trust in fragile states: The role of local government performance, rule of law, and responsiveness in Somalia

This study examines the relationship between governance practices, specifically the perception of local government performance, the rule of law, and local government responsiveness, and citizen trust in the local government in Mogadishu, Somalia. A quantitative, cross-sectional research design was used to gather data from 447 residents across the four administrative divisions of Mogadishu's local government, Somalia. The study utilized PLS-SEM using SmartPLS4 to verify and validate the proposed associations among the study constructs. The PLS-SEM analysis findings showed that all three constructs were positively and significantly associated with the citizen trust in the city government. Among these three governance practice constructs, local government responsiveness demonstrated the strongest association, suggesting the importance of city government responsiveness to citizen needs and concerns in rebuilding trust. The results of this study highlight the significant correlation between local government performance, the rule of law, and responsive governance with citizens' trust in Mogadishu, Somalia, post-war context. This study adds to the literature on governance practices and trust in post-conflict societies by presenting empirical evidence from the local government in Mogadishu, Somalia, a context that has received limited scholarly attention.