Skip to main content
Book cover

International Conference on Electronic Participation

ePart 2020: Electronic Participation pp 15–25Cite as

Trust in Citizens and Forms of Political Participation: The View of Public Managers

  • 517 Accesses

Part of the Lecture Notes in Computer Science book series (LNISA,volume 12220)

Abstract

Like all forms of collaborative governance, new forms of citizen participation include risk-taking and therefore depend on mutual trust between the collaborating actors. While there is a huge body of research on citizens’ trust in governments, public officials’ trust in citizens has received very little scholarly attention. In order to address this gap, this paper draws on a recent survey of a representative sample of public managers in local Swedish government (N = 1430). Do public managers think that citizens are trustworthy? Does trust in citizens impact which forms of citizen participation public managers prefer? Even though public officials are more trusting than the general populous, we show that not every public official do trust citizens. Furthermore, the results show public managers’ trust in citizens influences their attitudes towards new forms of participation. Just as citizens’ political trust has a positive impact on some forms of participation, but not on others, managers’ trust in citizens matters more for some forms of participation than others.

Keywords

  • Citizen participation
  • E-participation
  • Public officials
  • Public managers
  • Trust

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution.

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-58141-1_2
  • Chapter length: 11 pages
  • Instant PDF download
  • Readable on all devices
  • Own it forever
  • Exclusive offer for individuals only
  • Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout
eBook
USD   54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • ISBN: 978-3-030-58141-1
  • Instant PDF download
  • Readable on all devices
  • Own it forever
  • Exclusive offer for individuals only
  • Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout
Softcover Book
USD   69.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
Learn about institutional subscriptions
Fig. 1.

References

  1. Smith, G.: Democratic Innovations: Designing Institutions for Citizen Participation. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (2009)

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  2. Alford, J.: Engaging Public Sector Clients: From Service-Delivery to Co-Production. Palgrave Macmillan, New York (2009)

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  3. Innes, J.E., Booher, D.E.: Reframing public participation: strategies for the 21st century. Plan. Theory Pract. 5(4), 419–436 (2004)

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  4. Moynihan, D.P.: Normative and instrumental perspectives on public participation. Am. Rev. Public Adm. 32(2), 164–188 (2003)

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  5. Liao, Y., Schachter, H.L.: Exploring the antecedents of municipal managers’ attitudes towards citizen participation. Public Manag. Rev. 20(9), 1287–1308 (2018)

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  6. Yang, K.: Public administrators’ trust in citizens: a missing link in citizen involvement efforts. Public Adm. Rev. 65(3), 273–285 (2005)

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  7. Moyson, S., Van de Walle, S., Groeneveld, S.: What do public officials think about citizens? The role of public officials’ trust and their perceptions of citizens’ trustworthiness in interactive governance. In: Edelenbos, J., Van Meerkerk, I. (eds.) Critical reflections on interactive governance. Self-Organization and Participation in Public Governance, pp. 189–208. Edward Elgar, Cheltenham (2016)

    Google Scholar 

  8. Verba, S., Almond, G.: The Civic Culture: Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations. Princeton University Press, Princeton (1963)

    Google Scholar 

  9. Barnes, S.H., Kaase, M.: Political Action: Mass Participation in Five Western Democracies. SAGE, New York (1979)

    Google Scholar 

  10. Hooghe, M., Marien, S.: A comparative analysis of the relation between political trust and forms of political participation in Europe. Eur. Soc. 15(1), 131–152 (2013)

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  11. Reed, M.I.: Organization, trust, and control: a realist analysis. Organ. Stud. 22(2), 201–228 (2001)

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  12. Arnstein, S.: A ladder of citizen participation. J. Am. Inst. Plan. 35(4), 216–224 (1969)

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  13. Åström, J., Granberg, M.: Urban planners, wired for change? Understanding elite support for e-participation. J. Inf. Technol. Polit. 4(2), 63–77 (2007)

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  14. Yang, K., Callahan, K.: Citizen involvement efforts and bureaucratic responsiveness: participatory values, stakeholder pressures, and administrative practicality. Public Adm. Rev. 67(2), 249–264 (2007)

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  15. Rousseau, D.M., Sitkin, S.B., Burt, R.S., Camerer, C.: Not so different after all: a cross-discipline view of trust. Acad. Manag. Rev. 23(3), 393–404 (1998)

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  16. Vigoda-Gadot, E., Zalmanovitch, Y., Belonogov, A.: Public servants’ trust in citizens: an extension of theory and an empirical examination with structural equation modeling (SEM). Public Organ. Rev. 12(4), 383–399 (2012)

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  17. Adenskog, M., Åström, J., Ertiö, T., Karlsson, M., Ruoppila, S., Thiel, S.-K.: Balancing potential and risk: the living lab approach in mobile participation research. In: Parycek, P., et al. (eds.) ePart 2017. LNCS, vol. 10429, pp. 12–23. Springer, Cham (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-64322-9_2

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  18. Newman, J., Barnes, M., Sullivan, H., Knops, A.: Public participation and collaborative governance. J. Soc. Policy 33(2), 203–223 (2004)

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  19. Gilljam, M., Hermansson, J.: Demokratins Mekanismer. Malmö, Liber (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  20. Åström, J., Jonsson, M.E., Karlsson, M.: Democratic innovations: reinforcing or changing perceptions of trust? Int. J. Public Adm. 40(7), 575–587 (2017)

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  21. Åström, J.: Participatory urban planning: what would make planners trust the citizens? Urban Plan. (2020, forthcoming)

    Google Scholar 

  22. Åström, J.: Citizen participation. In: Orum, A.M. (ed.) The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Urban and Regional Studies. Wiley-Blackwell, Malden (2019)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Örebro University, 70182, Örebro, Sweden

    Joachim Åström & Martin Karlsson

Authors
  1. Joachim Åström
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Martin Karlsson
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Joachim Åström .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Agder, Kristiansand, Norway

    Sara Hofmann

  2. Corvinus University of Budapest, Budapest, Hungary

    Csaba Csáki

  3. Danube University Krems, Krems, Austria

    Noella Edelmann

  4. Danube University Krems, Krems, Austria

    Thomas Lampoltshammer

  5. Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden

    Ulf Melin

  6. Danube University Krems, Krems, Austria

    Peter Parycek

  7. University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

    Prof. Dr. Gerhard Schwabe

  8. University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki, Greece

    Efthimios Tambouris

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

Copyright information

© 2020 IFIP International Federation for Information Processing

About this paper

Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this paper

Åström, J., Karlsson, M. (2020). Trust in Citizens and Forms of Political Participation: The View of Public Managers. In: , et al. Electronic Participation. ePart 2020. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 12220. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-58141-1_2

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-58141-1_2

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-58140-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-58141-1

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)