The Role of Trust in The Modern Administrative State 2005

Administration & Society
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The Role of Trust in the Modern Administrative State: An Integrative Model

Seok-Eun Kim
Administration & Society 2005 37: 611
DOI: 10.1177/0095399705278596
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ADMINISTRATION
Kim / ROLE OF TRUST
& SOCIETY
IN THE ADMINISTRATIVE
10.1177/0095399705278596 / November 2005 STATE
THE ROLE OF TRUST IN THE

MODERN ADMINISTRATIVE STATE
An Integrative Model
SEOK-EUN KIM
Kansas State University
There is a growing consensus that trust may resolve an enduring tension between political
accountability and managerial flexibility in the modern administrative state. This complex
issue is dealt with by the development of a model of public trust in government. Theoretical
foundations are drawn from a wide range of social science literature in conceptualizing trust,
identifying factors affecting the trustworthiness of government, and exploring behavioral
implications for effective governance. An empirical test of the present model remains for fu-
ture research. However, the model suggests that a trustworthy government requires both ac-
countability and flexibility of administration and that trust would serve as a key variable in
reconciling this tension by expanding citizens’willingness to accept government authority.
Keywords: public trust; citizen compliance; trust model; trustworthy government
Public trust has been an issue in public administration since the found-
ing of the American system (Herring, 1936; Thompson, 1993). Trust in
government ebbs and flows whenever political turmoil such as the Water-
gate scandal and the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, provokes
alarm across the United States. Even when there is not sufficient political
turmoil to inspire general interest, trust is still a major issue for students of
public administration because successful governance requires public sup-
port for the implementation of policy programs (Miller, 1974; The Panel
on Civic Trust and Citizen Responsibility, 1999; Ruscio, 1997). Trust has
to stay above some minimal level if public policy programs are to continue
to function.
Although maintaining a high level of trust in government is important,
public distrust in American government does not indicate a crisis or even a
problem with democratic governance. The American system was founded
ADMINISTRATION & SOCIETY, Vol. 37 No. 5, November 2005 611-635
DOI: 10.1177/0095399705278596
© 2005 Sage Publications
611

612 ADMINISTRATION & SOCIETY / November 2005
on a distrust in government (Herring, 1936). Fears of possible abuse of

power, shared by both the public at large and the elite, led to the creation of
an elaborate system of checks and balances that was designed to enhance
accountability of the government at the expense of efficiency and effec-
tiveness. Thus, Thompson (1993) claimed that American government is
not designed to optimize performance but rather to inhibit it.
Nevertheless, the public has increasingly demanded higher quality ser-
vices from the government, often beyond its real competence. People
want better health care benefits, higher quality educational services, and
superior crime prevention systems, but they do not want to share in the
expenses necessary to make such higher quality services possible. The
resulting mismatch between the public’s expectations and the govern-
ment’s actual performance contributes to the pervasive belief that public
employees are incompetent, wasteful, dishonest, and untrustworthy.
However, relatively little research has been directed toward exploring the
role of the government and its employees in shaping public attitudes
toward building a more trustworthy government. Building institutional
trustworthiness of government is important because it can increase the
probability of citizens’ cooperative behavior and compliance with
government decisions by sharing common values and obligations to
governments.
The present study begins by observing the shortcomings of current
research on public trust in government agencies and their employees.
Despite the wide range of discussions and concerns about trust in govern-
ment, the complexity of trust has remained unsettled for several reasons:
the enduring challenge in conceptualizing trust, disagreement about what
constitutes a trustworthy government, and lack of discussion about the
behavioral consequences of trust relationships between government
agencies and the public. To address these shortcomings, this article pro-
poses an integrative model of public trust, focusing on factors affecting
trustworthy government, which may resolve an enduring tension between
the demand for political accountability and the need for managerial
flexibility in the modern administrative state.
COMPETING EXPECTATIONS
AND THE ROLE OF TRUST
The problem of trust in government is at the heart of the American

political system, wherein the need for efficient administration requires

Kim / ROLE OF TRUST IN THE ADMINISTRATIVE STATE 613
that public employees retain some level of managerial discretion, while

the demand for government accountability often calls for limiting that dis-
cretion (Ruscio, 1997). American political theories are often quite explicit
in their inherent distaste for strong bureaucratic powers because of con-
cern about ensuring accountability. This attitude is manifest in the U.S.
Constitution that created a formal set of checks and balances to limit any
possible abuses of political powers.
However, the growth of an administrative state often requires that dis-
cretionary powers be available to provide the necessary flexibility to deal
with the ever-increasing complexity of public problems. In fact, the Con-
stitutional framers, while attempting to constrain powerful authorities,
recognized the necessity of a managerial flexibility for efficient adminis-
tration. This tension is evident in the U.S. legal system where courts have
granted the doctrine of sovereign immunity for nearly two centuries to
protect governments from civil litigation (Jean & Leguey, 1998).
Although the U.S. courts have increasingly allowed governments to be
sued (e.g., Monell v. Department of Social Services of the City of New
York, 1978), this principle of government immunity has nevertheless
contributed extensively to the growth of an administrative state.
The emergence of the administrative state seems inevitable, but the
gulf between flexibility and accountability has continued to widen. Dis-
trust created an elaborate system of checks and balances for ensuring
bureaucratic accountability, but procedural rules and regulations have
correspondingly prevented public employees from producing their best
work. This suggests a fundamental conflict between the need for the pro-
tection of individual rights from governmental abuses of power and the
more pragmatic need for efficient administration. Thus, Ruscio (1999)
observed that “trust in the modern administrative state is the product of a
tension between the managerial imperative of discretion and the political
imperative of accountability” (p. 641).
Ruscio (1997) believed that trust helps alleviate the tension emanating
from the competing expectations in that it permits the delegation of discre-
tion to an administrative agency in an environment of institutional con-
straints. A high level of trust cannot necessarily replace time-honored sys-
tems of accountability, but “it can make them less intrusive, providing
discretion for managers and a greater willingness to delegate” (pp. 454-
455). A case study found that increasing employee discretion resulted in
improved organizational performance with elevated employee self-
esteem and work responsibility (Harris, 1994). With increased discretion
over their jobs and responsibilities, public employees could more

effectively deal with practical problems that often strike a snag in a rigid
and complex mechanism of accountability.
On the other side of the coin, trust increases the likelihood that the pub-
lic will voluntarily accept most of the decisions made by the government.
Voluntary compliance with organizational authorities is important
because it makes those authorities function effectively (Tyler, 1998). As
Tyler (1998) contends, government authorities face limits in forcing the
public to comply with all of the decisions and rules made by government
agencies. The use of coercive means to induce compliance may be costly
or even intolerable. Thus, it is becoming increasingly apparent that volun-
tary compliance may be a key component of successful policy implemen-
tation. In the 1990 U.S. Census, for example, the state of Georgia lost $2
billion in federal money because of the undercount of an estimated
142,425 people, or 2.2% of the state’s population. Much depends on the
public’s cooperation—that is, “filling out the form and sending it back to
the Census Bureau” (McKinney, 2000, p. 1).
NEED FOR A MODEL OF PUBLIC TRUST
The significance of trust in effective governance suggests that the

development of a model of public trust is both timely and practical. The
underlying assumption of the trust model development reflects a belief
that a parsimonious model with a manageable number of factors could
provide a solid basis for the empirical study of trust in government agen-
cies (Mayer, Davis, & Schoorman, 1995). The motivation for developing
a model of public trust is twofold: (a) the deficiency of the previous model
suggested in the trust literature; and (b) the establishment of trust as a con-
struct distinct from other similar concepts such as confidence.
The concept of trust is widely recognized across disciplines. Neverthe-
less, public administration scholars have largely failed to develop an
appropriate model of public trust that both explores the concept of trust
and suitably addresses its antecedents and implications. Notwithstanding
the difficulty in unraveling such an elusive construct, the underdeveloped
terrain of trust model construction not only inhibits theoretical consensus
about the causes and effects of trust but also makes it difficult to build a
solid foundation for the empirical study of trust. There are a few excep-
tions among psychologists and organizational theorists (e.g.,
Golembiewski & McConkie, 1975; Mayer et al., 1995; Zand, 1972) and
among public administration scholars (e.g., Carnevale & Wechsler, 1992;

Nachmias, 1985), but they have largely drawn attention to either the inter-
personal relationships in various settings or the organizational level of
trust in which a trustor, as an organizational member, attaches his or her
feelings and attitudes to the organization. Thus, there remains a dearth of
information on the institutional level of trust between government
agencies and the public.
There is one notable exception, however. Levi (1998) proposed a so-
called model of contingent consent that demonstrates the transformation
of interpersonal trust in public officials into institutional trustworthiness
that affects the citizenry’s degree of compliance with governmental
demands and regulations. The model indicates that public trust in govern-
ment is conditional in that citizens trust government only when they
believe that it is acting in accordance with their interests. The model also
implies that although public trust has largely been drawn from inter-
personal interactions, it would be better understood in the institutional
context. In this situation, a trustworthy government is likely to encourage
citizen compliance to the extent that the citizens deem legitimate the
authority who made the decision. Under a perceived legitimate authority,
citizens may sacrifice their interests as long as the government’s employ-
ees and procedures are trustworthy. Thus, this model embraces the
normative basis of trust.
Levi’s (1998) model offers a solid framework in which dynamics of
institutional trustworthiness of government are aptly portrayed. Although
this model is a significant addition to the development of trust research, it
contains two weaknesses. First, it is not clear about how the trustworthi-
ness of government actually results in citizen compliance. Although a
number of trust studies demonstrate that trust is a key variable affecting
compliance, not all trusting relationships lead to authentic cooperative
behavior because compliance is sometimes derived from coercion or cal-
culated intent (Hardin, 1998; Rousseau, Sitkin, Burt, & Camerer, 1998;
Thomas, 1998).
Second, Levi’s (1998) model does not sufficiently reflect the role of
government and its employees, who must satisfy the competing expecta-
tions demanded by the American political system. Her model of contin-
gent consent tells us that government, if it wants to be trusted by citizens,
should be capable of credible commitment and fairness in procedures.
However, a viable form of trustworthy government in an environment of
competing expectations requires both political accountability from public
employees and confidence in their ability to produce high organizational
performance. Thus, this article argues that confidence in government

performance, along with credible commitment and fairness in procedure,

is an important variable for attaining the trustworthiness of government.
Such a comprehensive approach should be more successful in resolving
the tension between political accountability and managerial flexibility.
This comprehensive approach in exploring factors affecting the trust-
worthiness of government helps establish trust as a construct distinct from
other similar concepts such as confidence. Kim (2001) argued that an
overwhelming glut of definitions for trust has created confusion among
many similar constructs such as faith, confidence, and satisfaction. Of
these, confidence is probably the most frequently used construct when
scholars speak of trust (Berman, 1997; La Porte & Metlay, 1996; Lipset &
Schneider, 1987). However, confidence represents a feeling or belief that
one can act in a proper and effective way. It arises from another party’s
capacity to function properly based on past experience, through which
one’s ability is tested and confirmed. In contrast, trust can arise from a
mere momentary perception that is unlikely to be proven.
Some writers claim that confidence is more appropriate than trust for
institutions because trust exists in personal relationships (Hardin, 1998;
Luhmann, 1979). Trust is a fundamentally personal decision that may not
be applicable to institutions. However, trust can be generalized to institu-
tions if what is meant is trustworthiness of institutions (Levi, 1998;
Zucker, 1986). Hardin (1998) agreed:
If trust does not generalize to institutions, it is of limited interest in political

theory and international relations . . . . In vernacular usage the term trust is
readily applied to many institutions and institutional actors, such as banks,
nations, and political leaders. As with individuals, the question of whether
we can reasonably trust institutions reduces to the question of whether
institutions can be trustworthy. (pp. 15-16)
When transitioning from interpersonal trust to institutional trustwor-

thiness, it is vastly important to distinguish trust from confidence. Trust
requires not only confidence but also many other elements such as credi-
ble commitment, honesty, and fairness in procedures. Confidence consti-
tutes only part of trusting behavior. One can have confidence in a high per-
forming government agency, however, that confidence will be in question
when the government acts unfairly or corruptly in procedures or acts
inconsistently with citizens’ interests. Institutional trustworthiness
requires public-spirited employees who are competent, credible, and will-
ing to act in the interest of larger public. Thus, Ruscio (1999) argued that
“[institutional] trust depends on weaving together judgments of the

integrity and capability of public officials with confidence in the

institutional structures in which they operate” (p. 641).
Each of the weaknesses found in the previous trust literature is
explored in the comprehensive model of public trust. The model devel-
oped here is designed to focus on trust in institutional settings, particularly
government, because institutional trust can serve to better explore the
relationship between government trustworthiness and its consequences
(i.e., citizen cooperation).1 Scholars observed that institutional trust
should be differentiated from interpersonal trust in that the former is capa-
ble of explaining the normative nature of institutional relationships that
are often poorly defined by the latter (Ruscio, 1997, 1999). Interpersonal
trust may suspend one’s self-interests momentarily or permanently to act
consistently with another’s interests. However, this trust relationship
requires a certain amount of knowledge about the other person. Thus,
Hardin (1998) claimed that interpersonal trust does not provide a mean-
ingful account of trust in government because citizens often do not have
information necessary to decide to trust. Institutional trust, on the other
hand, takes on a clearly normative character to the extent that citizens are
willing to follow government decisions even without sufficient informa-
tion under the assumption that those decisions are legitimate and protect
their interests (Levi, 1998).2
CONCEPTUALIZING TRUST
Across disciplines, trust has been viewed as an elusive or intractable

term (Gambetta, 1988; Golembiewski & McConkie, 1975). Thus, schol-
ars either seem to waffle when they speak of trust or avoid clarifying the
concept because doing so might provoke controversy. This conceptual
difficulty in defining trust comes from the complex and multidimensional
nature of this construct that permeates both interpersonal and institutional
levels (J. D. Lewis & Weigert, 1985; Thomas, 1998). Trust also has been
seen as both an attitude and a behavioral variable that is subject to influ-
ence from countless directions. Consequently, the definition of trust has
become amorphous and subtle, varying depending on the factors being
observed (Dasgupta, 1988; Jennings, 1998).
Because of the complexity of the notion, trust is operationalized by
scholars differently depending on the context in which it is studied in their
respective disciplines (Rousseau et al., 1998). The psychology literature
identifies trust as an internal cognitive process between trustors and

trustees (Rotter, 1967). Economists view trust as calculative or rational

expectations about outcomes generated by another party or organization
(Williamson, 1993). Sociologists perceive trust as a property of collective
attributes among people or institutions (J. D. Lewis & Weigert, 1985;
Zucker, 1986). These disciplinary differences introduce significant incon-
sistencies to the interpretation of trust and the demonstration of its practi-
cal importance.
A better conceptualization of trust begins by recognizing its multifac-
eted character that involves cognitive, affective, and behavioral dimen-
sions that can converge into a unitary social experience (J. D. Lewis &
Weigert, 1985). An extensive review of literature on trust, as shown in
Table 1, embraces the three somewhat distinctive but loosely coupled con-
cepts of trust.
First, trust is a cognitive decision by individuals who are willing to
grant discretion based on their evaluative beliefs in government (Berman,
1996; Carnevale, 1995; Hardin, 1998; La Porte & Metlay, 1996;
McAllister, 1995; Ruscio, 1996; Shurtleff, 1998). The decision could be
made from a number of different aspects such as affects, attitudes, and
cognitive judgment. For example, individual citizens tend to form a cer-
tain attitude toward the government, despite having little or no interaction
with it, through individual socialization, political affiliation, and
socioeconomic status. On the other hand, direct experiences with
governments—such as participation in public hearings and individual
contacts—provide citizens with affective and cognitive foundations for
trust in government. Whatever the cognitive foundations of trust develop-
ment, trust must fall somewhere between total knowledge and total igno-
rance because either extreme would make trust unnecessary (J. D. Lewis
& Weigert, 1985).
Second, trust is an affective notion that demonstrates an emotional
attachment by those who are in the trust relationship. This affective foun-
dation of trust implies a willingness to be vulnerable to another’s behavior
and forsakes or significantly reduces the desire for a controlling mecha-
nism to check government decisions (Butler, 1999; Mayer et al., 1995;
Onyx & Bullen, 2000; Rousseau et al., 1998; Warren, 1999; Zand, 1972).
However, the disillusionment that results from the betrayal of public trust
is likely to promote citizens’ personal investment in pressuring the gov-
ernment to increase the level of mutual trust. In effect, as trust decreases,
citizens’ attempts to monitor governments and make certain they act con-
sistently with citizens’ interests increases (Mayer et al., 1995; Zucker,
1986).

TABLE 1
A Review of Trust Definitions
Authors Definitions
Boon and Holmes “A state involving confident positive expectations about

(1991) another’s motives with respect to oneself in situations entailing
risk” (cited in Lewicki & Buncker, 1996, p. 117).
Braithwaite (1998) A relationship between actors or groups in which one party
adopts the position, expressed either verbally or behaviorally,
that the other will pursue a course of action that is considered
preferable to alternative courses of action.
Berman (1996) Belief in the ability and good intentions of someone or some-
thing to perform.
Butler (1999) Willingness to risk increasing one’s vulnerability to a person
whose behavior is beyond one’s control.
Carnevale (1995) A faith in people, their motivations, and their capacities.
Dasgupta (1988) Expectations about the actions of other people that have a bear-
ing on one’s own choice of action when that action must be
chosen before one can monitor the actions of those others.
Driscoll (1978) Belief that the decision makers will produce outcomes favor-
able to the person’s interests without any influence by the
person.
Fukuyama (1995) Belief that others act responsibly and for the common good.
Gambetta (1988) The probability that [a person] will perform an action that is
beneficial or at least not detrimental to us is high enough for us
to consider engaging in some form of cooperation with [the
person].
Gamson (1968) The probability that the political system will produce preferred
outcomes even if it is left untended.
Giffin (1968) An attitude having both cathectic and cognitive tendencies.
Golembiewski and An expectation about outcomes based on perceptions and life
McConkie (1975) experiences.
Hardin (1998) A form of encapsulated interest. A trusts B because he or she
presumes it is in B’s interest to act in a way consistent with A’s
interest.
Hosmer (1995) “An expectation by one [entity] of ethically justifiable
behavior—that is, morally correct decisions and actions based
upon ethical principles of analysis—on the part of the other
[entity] in a joint endeavor or economic exchange” (cited in
Wicks, Berman, & Jones, 1999, p. 101).
Jones and George A psychological construct, the experience of which is the out-
(1998) come of the interaction of people’s values, attitudes, and moods
and emotions.
(continued)

TABLE 1 (continued)
Authors Definitions
La Porte and Metlay The belief that those with whom you interact will take your
(1996) interests into account.
Levi (1998) The knowledge or belief that the trusted will have an incentive
to do what [a person] engages to do.
J. D. Lewis and Weigert The belief held by members of a social system that allows them
(1985) to act according to and feel secure in the expected futures con-
stituted by the presence of each other or their symbolic
representations.
Mayer, Davis, and The willingness of a party to be vulnerable to the actions of
Schoorman (1995) another party based on the expectation that the other will per-
form a particular action important to the trustor, irrespective of
the ability to monitor or control that other party.
McAllister (1995) The extent to which a person is confident in, and willing to act
on the basis of, the words, actions, and decisions of another.
Onyx and Bullen Willingness to take risks in a social context based on a sense of
(2000) confidence that others will respond as expected and will act in
mutually supportive ways, or at least that others do not intend
harm.
Rotter (1967) An expectancy held by an individual or a group that the word,
promise, or verbal or written statement of another individual or
group can be relied on.
Rousseau, Sitkin, Burt, A psychological state comprising the intention to accept vul-
and Camerer (1998) nerability based on positive expectations of the intentions or
behavior of another.
Shaw (1997) Belief that those on whom we depend will meet our expecta-
tions of them.
Shurtleff (1998) A choice each person makes to believe someone or something
wrong.
Warren (1999) A judgment to accept vulnerability to the potential ill will of
others by granting them discretionary power over some good.
Wuthnow (1998) A rational assessment of someone’s performances in the past
and the likelihood that the future would hold similar perfor-
mances by that person or by similar persons.
Zand (1972) Increasing vulnerability to another whose behavior is not under
one’s control in a situation in which the penalty one suffers if
the other abuses that vulnerability is greater than the benefit
one gains if the other does not abuse that vulnerability.

Finally, trust involves behavioral character. Although some scholars

rely heavily on psychological attitudes in conceptualizing trust
(Carnevale & Wechsler, 1992; Gamson, 1968; Giffin, 1967, 1968; Rous-
seau et al., 1998), many others recognize the importance of behavioral
components that strengthen trust relationships (Berman, 1996; Creed &
Miles, 1996; Cummings & Bromiley, 1996; Deutsch, 1962; Jones &
George, 1998; Zand, 1972). Citizens’ attitudes vary depending on the
ways that the government approaches trust relationships. Government
ignorance of citizens’ interests, broken promises, and incompetent imple-
mentation of programs can intensify public distrust. Conversely, citizens
will trust the government if it takes their interests into account, keeps its
promises, and maintains a competent and fair administration. Simply put,
public trust is contingent on how the government behaves toward citizens.
Thus, citizens’ voluntary compliance with government policy is likely
only when citizens perceive the government as trustworthy (Levi, 1998).
These three somewhat distinct dimensions—cognitive, affective, and
behavioral—are merged into a mutually supporting construct that is col-
lectively called trust. Based on the multifaceted character of trust, a gen-
eral concept of trust is defined in this article as the willingness of a trustor
to be vulnerable based on the belief that the trustee will meet the expecta-
tions of the trustor, even in situations where the trustor cannot monitor or
control the trustee. This general level of trust helps to explain how citizens
form an institutional trust in government. Public trust derives from the cit-
izens’ willingness to be vulnerable based on a belief that government and
public employees will meet the expectations of credible commitment,
benevolence, honesty, competency, and fairness without regular monitor-
ing. Figure 1 outlines a conceptual model of public trust developed from
the present discussions on which further examinations of government
trustworthiness are based.
THE FIVE FACTORS AFFECTING

TRUSTWORTHINESS OF GOVERNMENT
Although a great deal of research on trust has been conducted, the lack
of clear differentiation among factors influencing trust poses a major diffi-
culty that has limited further development of a trust model. Table 2 shows
a review of the trust variable proposed by scholars across disciplines. A
careful examination of these variables found that five characteristics of
the trustee appear to be the most salient components of government

Dimensions of
perceived trustworthiness
Credible Information
commitment Disclosure
Benevolence
Public Trust Citizen Citizen

Honesty Receptivity Cooperation
Competency
Control-based
Monitoring
Fairness
Positive relationship
Negative relationship
Figure 1: A Conceptual Model of Public Trust in Government Agencies
trustworthiness: credible commitment, benevolence, honesty, compe-

tency, and fairness. Because trust often permeates both the interpersonal
and institutional level, as suggested by Luhmann (1979), the five factors
identified in this article should not be viewed as being restricted to the
domain of either interpersonal or institutional levels of analysis. Rather,
they can be applied interchangeably to both analytical methods.
CREDIBLE COMMITMENT
Credible commitment is the most frequently cited dimension of gov-

ernment trustworthiness among scholars in public administration and
political science (Braithwaite, 1998; Daunton, 1998; Fukuyama, 1995;
Hardin, 1998; Kass, 1990; La Porte & Metlay, 1996; Levi, 1998). Follow-
ing Hardin (1998), Levi (1998) defined credible commitment as “the
encapsulated interest of the government actor to honor her agreements or
to act according to a certain standard” (p. 86). Two concepts highlight the
definition of credible commitment—encapsulated interest and consis-
tency. Hardin argued that encapsulated interest extends beyond simple
prediction. That is, even if the act of the trustee is predictable, one might
not trust another when the trustee does not take one’s interests into
account in his or her act. According to Hardin, Locke’s social contractay

TABLE 2
A Review of Trust Variables
Authors Variables
Alvarez and Brehm Responsiveness, honesty, fairness.

(1998)
Barns and Prior (1996) Acceptance, confidence, respect, honesty, reciprocity of duty,
reciprocity of interest.
Berman (1996) Fairness, honesty, faith in performance, concern for others.
Braithwaite (1998) Exchange trust (competence, predictability, consistency, cau-
tious decision making); communal trust (treating others with
respect, communicating with others, being accountable for their
own actions, understanding and responding to the needs of
others).
Butler (1999) Availability, openness, receptivity, competence, consistency,
discreetness, fairness, loyalty, promise fulfillment, integrity.
Carnevale (1995) Fairness, reliability, ethical behavior, competency.
Creed and Miles Embedded predisposition to trust, characteristic similarity,
(1996) experiences of reciprocity.
Cummings and Good-faith efforts, honesty, not taking advantage of another
Bromiley (1996) (limited opportunism).
Daunton (1998) Credible commitment, equal treatment, accountability,
transparency.
Gamson (1968) Credible commitment, efficiency.
Gibb (1964) Acceptance of self and others, data flow of both information
and perception, goal formation and achievement, regulatory
mechanism for social control and organization.
Giffin (1967) Interpersonal perceptions (expertness, reliability, intentions,
dynamism, personal attractiveness); situational conditions
(power relationships, possibility of gain through trust violation,
presence of an external threat, social conformity pressure); per-
sonality characteristics (high flexibility).
Kass (1990) Credible commitment, competency, integrity (ethical behavior).
Jennings (1998) Performance (magnitude of power, competence of personnel,
policies and programs), linkage between the citizenry and the
government (representativeness and accountability, responsive-
ness and concern, comprehensibility, transparency), politics and
corruption (honesty, lack of deceit and corruption, electoral and
party system).
La Porte and Metlay Credible commitment (consistency), competent implementa-
(1996) tion, fairness.
Lee (1995) Reasonable policy, consistency, openness, fair procedures, pre-
dictability (keep one’s word).
(continued)

TABLE 2 (continued)
Authors Variables
Levi (1998) Credible commitments; fair procedure; competency; honest,

ethical reciprocity.
Lewicki and Buncker Consistency of behavior, predictability, identification with the
(1996) other’s desires and intentions.
Loomis (1957, 1959) Cooperation, communication.
Mayer, Davis, and Ability, benevolence, integrity.
Schoorman (1995)
McAllister (1995) Affect-based trust (citizenship behavior, interaction frequency);
cognition-based trust (peer reliable role performance, cultural-
ethic similarity, professional credentials).
Meier (1993) Responsiveness to public needs, competence in the perfor-
mance of tasks.
Miller (1974) Honesty, competence, efficiency, equity, responsiveness.
Rotter (1967) Dependency, humor, gullibility, trustworthiness, popularity,
friendship.
Shaw (1997) Achieving results, acting with integrity, demonstrating concern.
The Panel on Civic Fairness, openness, credibility in policy making.
Trust and Citizen
Responsibility (1999)
Tyler (1998) Genuine concern about citizen needs, taking citizen needs into
consideration, adherence to ethical standards, fair treatment.
Wicks, Berman, and Rational prediction, affect or emotion, moral character or
Johns (1999) goodwill.
Wuthnow (1998) Credible commitment (consistency), honesty, competency.
Zand (1972) Information flow, influence, control.
Zucker (1986) Background expectation, constitutive expectations.
be a kind of trust relationship between the government and individual citi-

zens in that governors should exercise their power for the common good
and the preservation of citizens’ property.
Consistent behavior on the part of public employees also enhances
trust (Wuthnow, 1998). Trust can be facilitated if people recognize the
consistency between what the trustee says he or she will do and what he or
she actually does (Lewicki & Bunker, 1996). La Porte and Metlay (1996)
viewed institutional consistency as the primary vehicle for achieving a

trustworthy government. They provided several examples of successfully

maintained institutional consistency. For instance, the Federal Aviation
Administration has earned the public’s trust by consistently maintaining
flight safety and traffic coordination programs in commercial aviation.
The government can achieve such consistency when it provides the same
or a higher quality of service over time and thus enables citizens to make
reasonable predictions about what the government will do.
BENEVOLENCE
Several authors recognize that citizens tend to trust in government

when they feel that the government shows genuine care and concern for its
citizens (Berman, 1997; Braithwaite, 1998; Hart, 1984; Shaw, 1997;
Wicks, Berman, & Jones, 1999). For example, Tyler (1998) conceptual-
ized trustworthiness as “the benevolence of motives of the authority” (p.
270). Mayer et al. (1995) defined benevolence as “the extent to which a
trustee is believed to want to do good to the trustor, aside from an egocen-
tric profit motive” (p. 718). Such benevolence derives from emotional
attachment to the trustees, suggesting that the government and its employ-
ees are willing to help citizens even if they are not required to do so and if
there is no extrinsic reward for the behavior.
The requirement of benevolent behavior has shed some light on the
role of public administrators. Most notably, Hart (1984) emphasized that
so-called honorable bureaucrats must show genuine care for the citizens
whom they serve. Citizens trust public employees if the latter use their
power to help people, respect individual citizens, and make every effort to
understand the needs of their citizens. After all, attaining government
trustworthiness necessitates public-serving government employees who
can make sacrifices for the well-being of the larger public.
HONESTY
Citizen cynicism seems centered on the perception of a lack of honesty

in public employees. Not surprisingly, a number of authors treat honesty
as a major variable affecting public trust (Alvarez & Brehm, 1998; Barns
& Prior, 1996; Berman, 1997; Carnevale, 1995; Kass, 1990; Levi, 1998;
Miller, 1974). Evidence shows that government and its employees tend to
be seen as corrupt, fraudulent, and dishonest (Berman, 1997; Lipset &
Schneider, 1987; Nye, 1997). Thus, the rise of the administrative state has
drawn attention to the importance of wise and proper use of administrative

discretion to the extent that abuses of the power exercised in and by public
agencies has increased distrust in government (Carnevale, 1995; Nigro &
Richardson, 1990).
Hardin (1998) warned that many public employees are motivated by
self-interest, which raises the possibility of ethical misconduct while
these same employees are expected to protect citizens from unjust policies
that may cause harm. If people feel that public employees are concealing
their activities or taking advantage of citizens for their own personal bene-
fit, the public trust will be shaken. Trust in government agencies could
readily decay if public employees do not demonstrate honest behavior and
adherence to ethical standards.
COMPETENCY
Competency involves the knowledge and skills necessary for effective

operations with the aim of maintaining or increasing organizational pro-
ductivity. Research on government performance has shown that compe-
tency is an important variable for effective governance. Public agencies
have been under increasing pressure to perform competently since the late
1970s because of the rising expectations of the public in the United States
and throughout the world (Rainey, 1997). For example, the widespread
privatization movement demonstrates the declining capacity of govern-
ment to supply needed public services (Berman, 1997; Savas, 1987).
A number of authors have included competency as an important
dimension that determines government trustworthiness (Barns & Prior,
1996; Berman, 1997; Braithwaite, 1998; Carnevale, 1995; Jennings,
1998; Kass, 1990; La Porte & Metlay, 1996; Levi, 1998; Meier, 1993;
Miller, 1974). Berman (1997) found that ineffective services provided by
local government undermine the public trust. La Porte and Metlay (1996)
also observed that the declining competence of agency members, in
response to increasing demands related to complex problems, causes dis-
trust of government. In short, better performance could improve public
trust in government agencies (The Panel on Civic Trust and Citizen
Responsibility, 1999).
FAIRNESS
Many authors also consider fairness to be one of the important dimen-

sions of trustworthiness (Alvarez & Brehm, 1998; Carnevale, 1995;

Daunton, 1998; La Porte & Metlay, 1996; Lee, 1995; Levi, 1998; Meier,
1993). Fairness suggests that public agencies should treat citizens equally
by adhering to a set of principles that are consistent with the citizens’com-
mon beliefs about government. Levi (1998) held that “government fair-
ness requires the perception that all relevant interests have been consid-
ered, that the game is not rigged” (p. 90).
The perception of government fairness could decline when public
employees show favoritism to certain individuals and special interest
groups. For instance, if public employees treated individual citizens dif-
ferently based on socioeconomic or geographical factors, public trust
would be shaken. Individual citizens expect the government to be fair in
its procedures and in the allocation of its resources (Levi, 1998). If citi-
zens believe that the government is distributing the state’s resources
among them in a fair manner, they can tolerate and even accept undesir-
able requirements such as tax payment and military conscription.
All of the five factors identified above influence the level of public
trust. For example, citizens expect governments and their employees to
make credible commitments that will not lead to broken promises. Even if
they do keep their promises, however, credible commitments alone would
not assure that the citizens would trust them. Meeting this condition would
only suggest that governments can be trustworthy. To what extent would
citizens trust public employees who make credible commitments but do
not show concern for the citizens’ needs? Public employees who meet
these two conditions may still not be trusted by citizens if the employees
are not competent enough to help citizens achieve their goals or if they are
incompetent such that they are unable to continue providing services for a
reasonable length of time. The same argument could be made for any of
the five factors affecting public trust.
However, this does not necessarily mean that all of the five factors have
equal influence on public trust. Rather, they may vary in their degree of
importance depending on the individual citizens who are assessing the
trustworthiness of a particular government. Mayer et al. (1995) argued
that the propensity to trust varies across “people with different develop-
mental experiences, personality types, and cultural backgrounds”
(p. 715). Thus, one person may place more value on credible commitment
of public employees than on any other dimension, whereas others may
pay more attention to competent government administration.

BEHAVIORAL CONSEQUENCES
OF PUBLIC TRUST
Drawing on Gibb (1964), Zand (1972) provided a useful framework to

bridge the gap between attitudinal trust and behavioral cooperation.
According to Zand, one’s attitudinal trust can be transformed into behav-
ioral responses through information disclosure, acceptance of others’
influences, and reduced control of others’ behavior. Distrust of others dis-
torts relevant information. It encourages individuals to disguise facts and
ideas and to attempt to conceal information that might be important to oth-
ers (Jacobsen, 1999). As a result, the information being communicated
becomes inaccurate and fails to correspond to reality, reducing organiza-
tional effectiveness. In contrast, trust increases information sharing, with
the expectation that both parties will benefit from reciprocal interaction
(Driscoll, 1978; Loomis, 1957, 1959). For example, trust in government
encourages individual citizens to disclose important personal information
(i.e., during the U.S. Census) on which government performance is likely
to depend.
Distrust of government generates resistance to government influence.
In a distrusting relationship, citizens might fear that the government
would abuse their rights and that its programs would be harmful rather
than helpful. As a result, citizens might refuse to participate in policy
implementation processes or might base their participatory actions on
preexisting prejudices against the government’s positions. This citizen
resistance to government programs could become a critical issue, espe-
cially when the government programs involve potential hazards to citi-
zens. For instance, the Department of Energy (DOE) has struggled with
the construction of radioactive waste storage facilities because the pro-
gram poses risks to citizens, and those citizens do not trust the DOE to
minimize those risks in a way that is acceptable to them (La Porte &
Metlay, 1996).
Finally, Zand (1972) describes the process by which distrust mini-
mizes one’s dependence on others by imposing controls on their behavior
in those cases where cooperation between the parties is necessary for
achieving their mutual goals. Thus, greater surveillance and monitoring
becomes standard operating procedure (Mayer et al., 1995; Zucker,
1986). Presumably, citizens who distrust the government are less willing
to vote and participate in electoral politics but more willing to monitor and
control the acts of government by forming watchdog organizations that
demand higher accountability from government and its elected leaders.

For example, Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonprofit government

watchdog, identifies instances of government’s wasteful management and
makes recommendations to eliminate it. The Center for Public Integrity, a
nonprofit research organization, provides the public with the results of its
investigations of public services and ethics-related issues (C. Lewis,
1998).3 Conversely, trust would make control-based monitoring unneces-
sary and would secure long-term cooperation with government agencies
because of confidence that the government would abide by agreements
with citizens.
It is noted that the relationship between public trust and citizen cooper-
ation is not unidirectional. Public trust facilitates citizen cooperation with
the government, but the latter can also affect the former. Deutsch’s (1962)
“choice to cooperate” provides insight into the reciprocal relationship
between trust and cooperative behavior. According to Deutsch, coopera-
tion will not develop without trust because “the initiation of cooperation
requires trust whenever the individual, by his choice to cooperate, places
his fate in the hands of others” (p. 302). Thus, if the others are unreliable,
the individual taking the initiative is likely to incur costs. This reciprocal
relationship suggests that although a certain attitude may invite
behavioral change, the reverse could also be true.
DISCUSSION
This article addresses a fundamental issue of trust in the modern

administrative state: how to reconcile the need for political accountability
of government and its employees and the growing demand for discretion-
ary power to create a flexible administration. This complex and puzzling
issue is dealt with by the development of a model of public trust in the
institutional context. The proposed model in this article discusses the
proper roles of government and its employees in the modern administra-
tive state that enable them to be accountable for the competing expecta-
tions demanded by the American political system. The model explicitly
suggests that competency, along with other dimensions (e.g., credible
commitment and fairness) that are geared toward increasing political
accountability, is an equally important dimension of government trust-
worthiness.
The five factors of government trustworthiness explored in this model
imply that public employees must discipline their self-interests and
instead work for common interests. Government and its employees, while

respecting the individual citizens they serve, must take the public’s inter-
ests into account when making important decisions. Public employees
also need to have the skills and knowledge necessary for efficient, fair, and
honest government administration. Kass (1990) referred to this role of
public employees as stewardship, which suggests an effective and ethical
agent who shows willingness and ability to earn public trust.
However, merely calling for public-spirited people in pubic service
seems insufficient given the asymmetric power relationship between the
government and the public. Thus, some scholars propose a certain institu-
tional arrangement that promotes a trust relationship between the govern-
ment and the public (Hardin, 1998; Levi, 1998; Ruscio, 1999). Such an
arrangement requires that the public and its agents be empowered as part-
ners in planning, implementing, and overseeing government programs
through formal legislative and administration processes (e.g., the Govern-
ment in the Sunshine Act of 1976). For example, House Bill 100, enacted
in 1993 to reform the Georgia mental health systems, clearly specified that
patients and their families must constitute half of the regional and commu-
nity service boards that govern major decisions on service delivery (State
Commission on Mental Health, Mental Retardation, and Substance
Abuse Service Delivery, 1996).
An institutional arrangement designed to ensure accountability by
empowering citizens is likely to increase voluntary acceptance of the deci-
sions and rules of government authority to the extent that government and
citizens widen their shared values and interests. Citizens’ willingness to
accept government authority is crucial in that it can expand bureaucratic
discretion, which is indispensable for effective service delivery in the
modern administration state. Earlier organizational theorists (e.g.,
Barnard, 1938; Simon, 1948) noticed the significance of expanding a so-
called zone of acceptance for organizational effectiveness. This is equally
applicable, or may even be more important, to modern administrative
agencies because public employees would otherwise find it more difficult
to perform complex tasks that require flexibility and accountability. Thus,
Behn (1998) argued that “all governments require trust” (p. 149).
Several limitations of the proposed model must be recognized. First, its
focus is limited to identifying those attributes of trustees that affect the
level of trust assigned to government by citizens. The model should also
include several contextual influences on government trustworthiness
(e.g., media intervention, direct experiences with government, general
attitudes of individual citizens) with the aim of understanding the extent to
which contextual variables affect the level of public trust.

Second, the current model is generally unidirectional, progressing

from several determinants of public trust to behavioral consequences of
trust relationships. Future research could extend the model to explore how
citizen cooperation affects government performance and thus strengthens
the trustworthiness of government agencies.
Finally, many of the abstract ideas about trust addressed in this model
have not been tested with empirical data. The present model can be better
understood by empirically testing causes and effects and trust itself with
carefully designed measurement scales. Measures of the citizenry’s per-
ception of the trustee’s credible commitment, benevolence, honesty, com-
petency, and fairness must be consistent with the definitions identified in
this article. Measuring trust itself is a daunting job because it is a complex
and multidimensional construct. Thus, multiple-item measures should be
used to reflect the three distinct dimensions of trust. Behavioral conse-
quences of public trust can be measured by citizens’ perceptions about
information disclosure, receptivity, and control-based monitoring. For
example, measuring control-based monitoring would require a reverse
scoring of personal investment for participating in watchdog organiza-
tions. Finally, measuring citizens’ cooperative behavior would need sev-
eral surrogate indicators such as intention to vote, willingness to pay
taxes, and willingness to comply with government regulations.
As government experiences ever-increasing pressure to provide effec-
tive services with fewer resources, trust may help to shape a government
that is both highly productive and responsive. Distrust of government may
be the norm because no one will ever be fully satisfied with government
performance. However, the public may not be willing to accept lower
expectations and distrust on a permanent basis. Given the significance of
the role of trust in the modern administrative state, the limitations of the
study addressed above should receive continued attention.
NOTES
1. Based on Luhmann (1979), however, J. D. Lewis and Weigert (1985) warned against
bias toward either interpersonal- or institutional-level trust analysis, arguing that “trust can-
not be fully understood and studies exclusively on either the psychological level or on the
institutional level, because it so thoroughly permeates both” (p. 974).
2. Because of citizen vulnerability, scholars suggest institutional arrangements in which
structural and procedural complexity would protect citizens against the harm that violates
trust (Hardin, 1998; Levi, 1998; Ruscio, 1999). These institutional arrangements—due

process, government-issued certificates, and other formal policies and procedures—may

strengthen norms and promote trust.
3. Certainly this distrustful relationship between citizens and government is not unidirec-
tional. Government can also distrust the public and thus come to rely on complex procedures
and a host of regulations (Lee, 1995). However, the focus of this article is the dynamics of the
potential transformation of citizen attitudes into behaviors. The capacity and propensity of
government to attempt to monitor and control citizens is beyond the scope of this project.
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