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What drives trust in regulatory agencies? Probing the relevance of governmental level and performance through a cross-national elite experiment on EU regulation

  • Trust between constituent actors within the European Union (EU)'s multilevel regulatory re-gimes is decisive for regulatory success. Trust drives information flows, increases compliance, and improves cooperation within these regimes. Despite its importance, systematic know-ledge regarding the drivers of trust within regulatory regimes is limited. This paper inquires whether trust in regulatory agencies is influenced by their affiliation with the national or EU governmental level, as well as by their performance. While existing literature predominantly focuses on why citizens place their trust in governments or regulatory agencies, this paper presents original insights regarding the formation of trust among elites within the regulatory regime, including politicians, ministerial officials, agency officials, interest groups, and regu-lated entities. We employ data obtained from a large-scale vignette experiment conducted in six countries involving 752 decision-makers from relevant organizations. The experimental results suggest that both public and private elite actors' trust assessment of regulatory agen-cies does not hinge on cues associated with the governmental level, but rather depends on agency performance. Accordingly, belonging to the national or EU governmental level does not create a difference in trust assessment of regulatory agencies in itself. It, however, shows that particularly elite actors are rather sensitive in terms of the performance of a regulatory agency.

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Author:Rahel M. Schomaker, Moritz Kappler, Koen Verhoest, Tobias Bach, Libby Maman
URL:https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/european-political-science-review/article/what-drives-trust-in-regulatory-agencies-probing-the-relevance-of-governmental-level-and-performance-through-a-crossnational-elite-experiment-on-eu-regulation/96504A2B376899E4435DACDE680FF089
ISSN:1755-7747
Parent Title (English):European Political Science Review: EPSR; a journal of the European Consortium for Political Research
Volume:16
Publisher:Cambridge
Place of publication:Cambridge University Press
Document Type:Article
Language:English
Year of Completion:2024
Publishing Institution:Deutsche Universität für Verwaltungswissenschaften
Release Date:2025/01/13
Online-Document?:ja
Issue:4
First Page:539
Last Page:556
Licence (German):License LogoUrheberrechtlich geschützt