Administrative Corruption and Citizen Trust in Digital Public Services in Local Governments

Romero-Carazas R.; Medina-Esquivel W.A.; Huamani-Molloco M.A.; Valero-Ancco V.N.; Atahuasi-Chaparro J.; Samaniego-Montoya C.M.; Flores-Cáceres R.; Espinoza-Casco R.J. · Studies in Media and Communication (2026) · DOI: 10.11114/smc.v14i2.8421

Resumen

Corruption in the public sector in digital services undermines public trust, affects transparency, and hinders efforts to improve service progress. To enhance trust and government efficiency, it is crucial to combat it. The objective of the study is to determine the relationship between administrative corruption and citizen trust in digital public services: perception of users in Arequipa. The structural equation model (SEM) served as the basis for this quantitative, non-experimental, and cross-sectional study, where 700 users who utilize digital public services in the city of Arequipa were surveyed. According to the findings, 76.4% of users are familiar with the concept of administrative corruption, and 58% have a positive impression of the level of citizen trust. Moreover, the structural equation model showed that administrative corruption is strongly correlated with citizen trust (0.879). As well as, regarding the user (0.846), the information (0.826), and citizen participation (0.820). It is concluded that there is a significant relationship between administrative corruption and citizen trust in digital public services according to the perception of users in Arequipa. © Copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the journal. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

Instituciones: Universidad Nacional de San Agustín de Arequipa; Universidad Nacional del Altiplano; Universidad San Ignacio de Loyola; Universidad Tecnológica del Perú; Universidad Nacional Tecnológica de Lima Sur; Universidad Nacional Jorge Basadre Grohmann; Universidad César Vallejo