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The relationship between trust and distrust in public governance is still an open question. In the literature, three different perspectives on how trust and distrust are related are inten-sively debated: (1) trust and distrust as two ends of the same conceptual continuum; (2) trust and distrust as opposites, but with neutral ground in between; and (3) trust and distrust as related, yet distinct concepts. Employing a new measure for distrust and by using perceptual data on trust and distrust in regulatory agencies from multiple types of stakeholders in nine countries and three sectors, this article shows that high trust and high distrust can co-exist at the same time, and that trust and distrust are negatively correlated only to a limited extent. Moreover, while trustworthiness correlates strongly with trust, trustworthiness does not or only weakly correlate with distrust in a negative way. These findings are robust even when controlling for respondents' characteristics, different types of stakeholders, sectors and countries. This suggests that in public governance settings trust and distrust should be con-sidered as distinct concepts, and the article calls for more research into the distinctiveness of the measurement, causes and effects of distrust, compared to trust.
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.
In this paper, we position generalised trust as central to the debate on elites’ assessments of trust in EU multi-level governance. We leverage one of the most influential factors in explai-ning political trust in single-government studies to understand variations in trust towards political authorities at various levels. Departing from existing studies, we hypothesise the dual nature of generalised trust: while it influences how individuals assess their trust in poli-tical authorities, its impact varies depending on different degrees of perceived similarity of these authorities at either the national or the EU level. To test our hypotheses, we conducted an elite vignette experiment involving 567 decision-makers from public and private stakehol-ders within regulatory regimes in eight countries. The results reveal a significant positive effect of generalised trust on political trust when evaluating a national-level regulatory agency. However, trust assessments of EU-level regulatory agencies appear to be largely unaffected by generalised trust levels. Furthermore, we observed notable differences in trust assessment between private and public stakeholders, reinforcing our argument that simila-rity and community belonging underlie the influence of generalised trust on political trust. Our study suggests that EU-level political authorities may derive less benefit from high levels of generalised trust, compared to national political authorities. However, in instances where generalised trust is low, political authorities at the EU level have comparatively more opportunities to cultivate trust in them.
