{"title":"A stranger thing? Sweden as the upside down of multilevel trust","authors":"Gissur Ó. Erlingsson","doi":"10.1080/21515581.2021.2014337","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT As a rule, citizens appreciate local more than central government. This paper proposes a new research agenda for multilevel trust studies by arguing that it is premature to believe that citizen’s proximity to officials by definition trumps distance. As in country-comparative studies, close attention needs to be paid to institutional quality in analyses of multilevel trust. To put this argument to work, a closer investigation of Sweden is conducted. Tracking three indicators of trust, with time-series stretching over two decades, Sweden turns out to be a curious outlier from the international pattern: Swedes trust their local government less than the state. To make this observation intelligible – while simultaneously aiming to contribute to a more nuanced theoretical understanding of multilevel trust – the mix of three features is identified for bringing this circumstance about: (1) the principal role Swedish municipalities have successively been given in implementing core welfare state assignments; (2) that several of the municipalities’ assignments are susceptible to corruption; and (3) that the increase in municipal responsibilities has neither been accompanied with institutions that guarantee accountability of politicians nor the impartiality of local bureaucracies.","PeriodicalId":44602,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Trust Research","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.9000,"publicationDate":"2021-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"6","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Trust Research","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/21515581.2021.2014337","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"MANAGEMENT","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 6
Abstract
ABSTRACT As a rule, citizens appreciate local more than central government. This paper proposes a new research agenda for multilevel trust studies by arguing that it is premature to believe that citizen’s proximity to officials by definition trumps distance. As in country-comparative studies, close attention needs to be paid to institutional quality in analyses of multilevel trust. To put this argument to work, a closer investigation of Sweden is conducted. Tracking three indicators of trust, with time-series stretching over two decades, Sweden turns out to be a curious outlier from the international pattern: Swedes trust their local government less than the state. To make this observation intelligible – while simultaneously aiming to contribute to a more nuanced theoretical understanding of multilevel trust – the mix of three features is identified for bringing this circumstance about: (1) the principal role Swedish municipalities have successively been given in implementing core welfare state assignments; (2) that several of the municipalities’ assignments are susceptible to corruption; and (3) that the increase in municipal responsibilities has neither been accompanied with institutions that guarantee accountability of politicians nor the impartiality of local bureaucracies.
期刊介绍:
As an inter-disciplinary and cross-cultural journal dedicated to advancing a cross-level, context-rich, process-oriented, and practice-relevant journal, JTR provides a focal point for an open dialogue and debate between diverse researchers, thus enhancing the understanding of trust in general and trust-related management in particular, especially in its organizational and social context in the broadest sense. Through both theoretical development and empirical investigation, JTR seeks to open the "black-box" of trust in various contexts.