Education, Internet Use, and Confidence in the Police: Testing the “Informed Citizen” Thesis in the Philippines

We applied the “informed citizen” thesis to public confidence in the police in the Philippines—a topic that has surprisingly received little research attention. We analyzed four waves of survey data from the Asian Barometer Survey (ABS), and we applied propensity score matching (PSM) method and regression models to the data. We operationalized education, interest in politics, and Internet usage as indicators of an informed citizen. We tested whether they are predictive of confidence in the police. Confidence in the Philippine police has gradually improved from 2002 to 2014. Regression analysis found that citizens with more education and more Internet usage displayed lower levels of confidence in the Philippine police. We also found that an interaction effect between education and political interests, with education having a stronger connection to confidence in the police among those with greater political interests. Our findings support the informed citizen thesis and shed new light on the study of confidence in the Philippine police.