Social Trust, Impartial Administration and Public Confidence in EU Crisis Management Institutions

an article by Thomas Persson, Charles F. Parker and Sten Widalm (Department of Government, Uppsala University, Sweden) published in Public Administration Volume 95 Issue 1 (March 2017)

Abstract

In this article, we investigate whether differences in social trust and impartial public administration have an impact on public confidence in EU crisis management institutions. Our assessment is based on a cross-country comparison using aggregate country-level data of the member states in the European Union.

Earlier studies on the EU as a crisis manager have not carefully studied to what extent differences in social trust and administrative culture may or may not matter.

Our analysis shows that in countries where citizens are treated impartially by their own national public administration institutions, people are less likely to support EU-coordinated civil protection efforts.

In contrast, in places where citizens perceive their government's treatment of them as partial and unfair, citizens will tend to support EU-coordinated civil protection.

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