trust

Government’s social responsibility, citizen satisfaction and trust

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P&p blog authorsEran Vigoda-Gadot, Shlomo Mizrahi and Nissim Cohen

How much do we trust the government? To what degree do we feel that it has a responsibility to ensure that its citizens are healthy? Do these issues have any relationship with our satisfaction with the services the government provides?

These are important questions, particularly when we face major issues like pandemics. We know that when we trust people or institutions, we are more willing to cooperate with them, take risks, commit to them and share information with them. In contrast, when we don’t trust people or institutions, we may fear them, be defensive in our interactions with them, not cooperate with them and distort the information we give them. Continue reading →

Why British people don’t trust the government any more – and what can be done about it

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Peter Taylor-Gooby and Benjamin LeruthPeter Taylor-Gooby and Benjamin Leruth

A version of this blog was originally published on The Conversation on 31 January 2018.

Trust in politicians has fluctuated relatively little during the last 30 years in the UK. It remains stubbornly low. According to an index by the pollsters Ipsos-Mori, 18% of people said they trusted politicians in 1983, and 17% in 2017. Yet this hides some real changes that have taken place in recent years. As the rise of populist movements and decline of mainstream parties across Europe shows, the gap between politicians and citizens seems to grow ever wider. Continue reading →