Trust in Regulatory Regimes, by F. Six and K. Verhoest, Cheltenham, UK, Edward Elgar, 2017

Abstract

ABSTRACT Starting from the assumption that citizens’ trust toward providers of goods and services depends on their trust in the regulators of those providers, ‘Trust in regulatory regimes’ offers an analytical framework to look at ‘polycentric regimes’ of regulators, regulated organisations, and citizens. The empirical chapters address several issues identified in a literature review about the role of trust in regulatory regimes, especially the lack of empirical studies about the relation between public-sector regulators and public-sector regulated organisations as well as the scarcity of research considering dynamics of trust (i.e. trust among certain actors influencing trust among other actors, or trust at time-1 depending on actors’ attitudes and behaviours since time-0). This book review concludes that buying ‘Trust in regulatory regimes’ is a crucial step for all scholars and students interested in trust and regulation, after having suggested further avenues for future research on this topic.