A new three-year TrustGov project has launched as a collaboration between our University and Harvard University.
Generously supported by a £1.3 million award by the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council (ES/S009809/1), research from the project will investigate ‘Trust and Trustworthiness in National and Global Governance’.
TrustGov plans to advance new theories and evidence from countries around the world designed in order to address three issues:
- What drives public trust in governance around the world? In particular, does performance or procedural legitimacy matter, what is the role of communications in this process, and does place matter?
- Under what conditions do critical citizens seek to ‘trust but verify’?
- What can be done to strengthen the optimal level of trust?
The project will be led by an experienced team of internationally-known scholars:
- Professor Will Jennings (University of Southampton)
- Professor Pippa Norris (Harvard University and the University of Sydney)
- Professor Gerry Stoker (University of Southampton and the University of Canberra)
Professor Will Jennings said:
“Many say that politics is broken. The erosion of political trust in national and global institutions poses a major challenge to many states and to the global order. Our project will explore how and when citizens’ trust in political institutions reflects their actual performance – and what leads citizens to be cynical or naïve in their beliefs. It will also investigate how trust differs between places – within countries – in particular, the degree to which citizens in outlying towns and rural areas are more distrusting of political elites.”
If you have any queries regarding the project, please email the team at: [email protected]
