THE GREATEST RESULTS OF THE MIND ARE PRODUCED BY SMALL BUT CONTINUED EXERTIONS
Perhaps a sort of pep talk for all who might read it
First off my apologies for the letter size in my verse above. What are some pointers in being a good citizen? The following from BYU Hawaii may give us some ideas in our day to day practice.
In the United States, a good citizen is to do work that helps fulfill the following objectives as stated below.
In the Constitution’s preamble, the nation’s goals include:
forming a more perfect union,
establishing justice,
ensuring domestic tranquility,
providing for the common defense,
promoting general welfare and
securing the blessings of liberty to citizens and their posterity.
People can learn about how the government functions and seek the truth to be good citizens. Good citizenship includes seeking truth to truly understand the issues rather than being informed by propaganda and ideology. Informed voting, serving on a jury and participating in public events that serve good purposes are good citizenship elements.
Good citizenship in the United States includes peacefully assembling and petitioning the government to change to fulfill the American people’s objectives better.
I came across the following when searching the internet today. I have not read the book for which this critique/report is from but I thought this article in itself might lend some ideas about a related topic, trust or distrust in government. It’s slightly askew of my theme but worthwhile to consider. The following caught my eye, “dramatic shifts of (dis)trust can also breed dysfunction.” Could it be possible that trust issues are part of the Republicans' severe dysfunction today? Certainly there are many issues of fear at play among Republican Representatives and Senators with the closely associated questions of trust. I just thought this was interesting nonetheless. Of the three barriers discussed below, both populism and pros seem quite relevant to me. I also found the following quite interesting, ‘distrust is fundamental to efforts to check government’s exercise of power, but at the same time can impede government’s efforts to “do what citizens need, want, and expect.”
JOURNAL ARTICLE
A slow and steady approach to building trust in government
Donald F. Kettl 2017. Can Governments Earn Our Trust?Malden, MA: Polity Press. 160 pp. $45.00 (hardcover)/$12.95 (paperback).
Gregory A Porumbescu
Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory
In Can Governments Earn Our Trust?, Donald Kettl addresses an issue of longstanding concern—citizens’ trust in government. The book is timely in that it comes during a tumultuous period in United States’ history and growing concern that the institutions that form the bedrock of democracy are on a path to irreparable damage. Kettl interprets current events through a lens of distrust and takes a more measured, hopeful perspective. In his treatment of this important topic, Kettl highlights a fundamental tension confronting all democratic governments, which is that the very power governments require to govern also establishes a foundation for citizens’ distrust of government. Throughout the manuscript, this tension is used as a mechanism to highlight the importance distrust plays in the design of public institutions and their performance; as distrust grows, governments have a harder time exercising the power they need to fulfill their obligations to the public. Yet, while a number of powerful forces may be to blame for the growing distrust in government observed in the United States today, as well as in other contexts, the central thesis advanced by this manuscript is that the government is not without its own set of tools that can be used to offset growing distrust and, with some sustained effort, earn citizens’ trust.
In the introduction, “The Puzzle of Trust,” Kettl references a number of different sources of data to explain that the United States has been experiencing a sustained decline in levels of trust in government that originates in the 1960s. However, Kettl is careful to note that declining trust in government is not limited to the United States but rather is experienced by many nations around the world. Indeed, for all democratic nations, a certain degree of distrust is inevitable. Yet, just as distrust shapes the design of government institutions and the way they function, dramatic shifts of (dis)trust can also breed dysfunction. For this reason, persistent decline in trust in government is of great concern because it can bias the performance of public institutions and detract from the government’s ability to govern. With this in mind, the “basic puzzle” this book addresses is explained (p. 2): “If distrust is inevitable, but getting worse is there anything we—especially the officials we elect to lead us—can do about it? Can they earn our trust?” The remainder of the introduction overviews the complexity of trust, noting that there is not a single global trend. For example, although evidence from the United States points to a persistent decline, in other nations, trust has been trending upward. Furthermore, though levels of trust in government in general tend to be low in the United States, levels of trust in particular government agencies tend to be higher. Kettl also points to gaps in trust across age and political parties.
Chapter 2, “The Case for Distrust,” elaborates on a key dilemma confronting democratic governments, which is that distrust is fundamental to efforts to check government’s exercise of power, but at the same time can impede government’s efforts to “do what citizens need, want, and expect” (p. 25). A subsequent issue that arises is a difficulty in ensuring that a healthy distrust of government does not metastasize into a crippling distrust that breeds dysfunction. As such, the way government addresses citizen distrust is of great consequence—too little distrust and governments may abuse their power, and too much distrust and governments may not be able to use their power. Yet, while citizens’ levels of trust in government may rise and fall over time, Kettl argues that, because of different powerful forces, it will be difficult for the United States to recover to the historically high levels of trust in government enjoyed in the 1960s. In other words, we are “stuck in a rut” (p. 49). With this rut in mind, Kettl outlines two propositions that, he argues, lay the foundation for any solutions to the current predicament. The first is the inevitability of distrust of democratic institutions. That is, no matter what is done, we cannot eliminate distrust. The second is that some degree of distrust is beneficial to the functioning of government. That is, even if we could eliminate distrust entirely, we would not want to. The chapter closes with an explanation that trust and distrust are not “absolutes, but rather counterbalances” and that what we are concerned of is the prospect that “the balance has tipped too far” and that “distrust has crippled democracy and pushed government’s ability to perform to a crisis point” (p. 54).
Chapter 3, “Earning Trust,” outlines strategies to improve citizens’ trust in government and argues the foundation for trust in government exists in elements taken from two levels of government—the wholesale level and the retail level (p. 63). At the wholesale level, “trust depends on creating confidence in the ability of government and its institutions, at the highest level, to represent its people and to perform fairly on their behalf” (p.63). At the retail level, “trust depends on creating confidence in government’s ability to deliver on its policies, fairly and effectively, at the operational level where government interacts directly with its people.” Readers may see parallels between Kettl’s argument and work by Easton (1965, 1975) that discusses specific and diffuse support for political systems. Trust at the wholesale level is said to be strongly related to levels of income inequality, thus making efforts to increase trust at this level problematic because of a “fundamental paradox” in that programs targeting income inequality are usually very challenging to execute and sustain (p. 70). Trust at the retail level stems from citizens’ experiences interacting with the state to obtain services and fulfill obligations, such as paying taxes. Kettl cites data that indicate citizens’ experiences with 15 federal agencies generally run far short of their expectations, meaning there is considerable room for improvement in retail trust for the federal government. In this sense, a key point is that efforts to enhance trust in government may be most effective when they focus on improving retail level trust and that this can be accomplished by adopting a customer-oriented perspective on citizen level transactions. This idea, as Kettl notes, is not new; efforts to improve trust by adopting a customer-oriented perspective are longstanding and widespread.
Chapter 4, the final chapter, begins with a discussion of challenges to building trust. Kettl focuses on three barriers—populism, proxies, and pros. Populism represents a coalition of groups who feel left out by modernization efforts. As Kettl explains, “populism rose as trust declined, and distrust proved greatest where inequality was highest” (p. 91). Proxies refer to governments’ increasing reliance on third parties for assistance in delivering public goods and services. Although efforts to build retail-level trust depend upon government’s success in improving citizens’ experiences with government, the growing use of proxies means that citizens directly interact less with their government, which makes it more difficult for citizens to understand what aspects of service provision the government is responsible for. Kettl’s discussion of proxies bears parallels to work by Suzanne Mettler (2011) that discusses the perils of what she refers to as the submerged state. Pros refers to a growing “cynicism about professionals and experts” (p. 104). Citing a range of examples and polls, Kettl explains that there is growing distrust in expert knowledge, and that this distrust is particularly strong among those on the right. In turn, “many citizens simply trust their own common sense over expert opinion” (p. 108). Kettl concludes the chapter noting that, while there are a variety of forces that play a critical role in shaping citizens’ evaluations of government at the wholesale level and their trust in government in general, retail level strategies can still play an important role, if only “at the margins of what otherwise are powerful wholesale forces” (p. 120).
Overall, the arguments laid out in this manuscript are thorough and the range of examples used make the book a very entertaining read. Kettl also provides a tempered perspective on current events. Furthermore, the book effectively provides readers with a focused summary of an expansive body of literature on the topic of trust. However, an important point of uncertainty in the manuscript pertains to the relationship between trust and distrust. Namely, if levels of trust in government are declining, can we really interpret this to signal a rise in distrust of government? Conversely, can we also expect offsetting distrust to result in greater trust? Elsewhere in the literature, trust and distrust are argued to be distinct constructs that exist simultaneously, as opposed to at each other’s expense and that low trust should not be equated with high distrust (e.g. Lewicki, McAllister, and Bies 1998). This lack of clarity has important implications for efforts to improve trust in government, in that determinants of distrust may differ from those of trust. In other words, strategies for addressing distrust may, to some degree, look different from those intending to increase trust in government.
Kettl’s strategy for bolstering citizens’ trust in government can be placed in a broader body of literature that explores the extent to which government performance actually drives trust in government (e.g. Kampen, Van de Walle, and Bouckaert 2006). Kettl’s contribution to discussions on how to build trust, or offset distrust, is not necessarily new, as scholars have debated the role of performance in driving trust for some time. Although this strategy may not offer new theoretical insight, the measured, yet optimistic case Kettl makes for a performance driven, customer-oriented approach to improving trust in government is valuable in that it navigates a wealth of literature to clarify for readers where the particular type of performance discussed by Kettl falls within a broader constellation of trust antecedents. One point, however, that is unclear in this discussion is Kettl’s view on the extent to which previous reform attempts to improve citizens’ experiences with government, such as the National Partnership for Reinventing Government, were successful in restoring trust or dispelling distrust. Given that Kettl reviews statistics from 2015 indicating that many federal agencies are still falling short of living up to citizens’ expectations, readers would benefit from some explicit discussion of why previous efforts to initiate a customer-oriented perspective in federal agencies in the United States have fallen short and how the approach offered by Kettl might succeed where similar attempts have failed.
Cumulatively, the manuscript is effective in highlighting the challenges associated with building citizen trust in government and making it clear that there is no single silver bullet while at the same time stressing that all is not lost—that trust can be built and that, while current events are troubling, actors in government do have the tools the need to institute positive change, albeit slowly. At a time when it is easy to find pessimistic takes on the current state of affairs and forecasts mired in pessimism, Kettl’s measured optimism is refreshing but, at the same time, does not trivialize the task at hand. All told, Can Governments Earn Our Trust? is an informative and entertaining read.
So that is what I have for today. Each of us probably are already doing something to promote our democracy. But I only wish to highlight it again for those who wish to possibly do something more.
165th Posting, February 7, 2024.