How trust in EU institutions is linked to trust in national institutions: Explaining confidence in EU governance among national-level public officials
| Author | Sten Widmalm,Thomas Persson,Charles F Parker |
| DOI | 10.1177/1465116519857162 |
| Published date | 01 December 2019 |
| Date | 01 December 2019 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
European Union Politics
How trust in EU
2019, Vol. 20(4) 629–648
! The Author(s) 2019
institutions is linked to
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DOI: 10.1177/1465116519857162
trust in national
journals.sagepub.com/home/eup
institutions: Explaining
confidence in EU
governance among
national-level
public officials
Thomas Persson
Department of Government, Uppsala University,
Uppsala, Sweden
Charles F Parker
Department of Government, Uppsala University,
Uppsala, Sweden
Sten Widmalm
Department of Government, Uppsala University,
Uppsala, Sweden
Abstract
This article analyzes the link between trust in national institutions and trust in European
Union-level institutions among national public officials. Previous research has mainly
looked at citizens; in contrast, little is known about the views national officials actually
hold towards European Union-level institutions or how much confidence they place in
them. Our study draws on a unique survey of 670 officials in 17 European Union
member states who are involved in civil protection, a policy area which has recently
emerged as one of the most important in the Union. Three mechanisms are explored: a
Corresponding author:
Thomas Persson, Department of Government, Uppsala University, P.O. Box 514, SE-751 20 Uppsala, Sweden.
Email: thomas.persson@statsvet.uu.se
630
European Union Politics 20(4)
‘transference’ mechanism; a ‘trust syndrome’ mechanism and a ‘rational evaluation’
mechanism. Our findings confirm the existence of all three mechanisms and show
that if European Union institutions are to be trusted to manage European Union-
wide crises, then national institutions must be trusted too. This has far-reaching impli-
cations for the prospects of enhanced cooperation among civil-protection institutions
in the European Union.
Keywords
Civil protection, European Union, institutional trust, public officials, social trust
Introduction
A vast amount of research has pointed to a relationship between trust in national
and in European-level institutions. Scholars do not agree, however, on the direc-
tion of this relationship. Some argue there is a positive relationship, whereby
the more citizens tend to trust their national institutions, the more likely they
are to trust European-level institutions as well; this is generally referred to as the
‘congruence’ hypothesis (Mu~
noz et al., 2011) or the ‘equal assessments’ model
(Anderson, 1998; Kritzinger, 2003). Other researchers suggest that, conversely,
the less citizens tend to trust their national institutions, the more likely they are
to trust European-level ones; this is generally known as the ‘compensation’
hypothesis (Mu~
noz et al., 2011) or the ‘different assessments’ model (Kritzinger,
2003; Sa´nchez-Cuenca, 2000).
Empirical evidence on the nature of this relationship seems to point in both
directions (for a review, see Mu~
nos, 2017: 77). However, most studies thus far have
explored this relationship among citizens only; few investigate how much national
public officials trust the European Union (EU) institutions with which they are
required to cooperate. Despite the fact that European integration is generally
considered to be an elite-led project (Haller, 2008; Hix and Goetz, 2000) in
which it is assumed that elites are more willing to cede national authority and
sovereignty in certain areas than citizens in general (Hooghe, 2003), surprisingly
little is known about the views national officials actually hold towards EU-level
institutions or how much confidence they place in them. At the same time, research
has established that trustworthy institutions can facilitate cooperation (Levi and
Stoker, 2000) and that they are crucial for effective governance and a well-
functioning democracy (Levi, 1998; Putnam, 1993; Rothstein, 2011).
Admittedly, there are several studies that investigate how political elites and
citizens take cues from one another in forming their opinions on European inte-
gration (see e.g. Armingeon and Ceka, 2013; Best et al., 2012; Hooghe and Marks,
2005; Sanders and Toka, 2013; Steenbergen et al., 2007). In addition, a number of
studies explore how national officials may shift their loyalty from the national to
Persson et al.
631
the EU level, and how role perceptions and identities are conditioned by officials’
domestic embeddedness (Beyers and Trondal, 2004; Egeberg, 2011; Trondal,
2011). It is less common, however, to find in-depth analyses of the factors that
foster trust in EU governance among national officials. In this article, we seek to
fill this lacuna by examining how trust in EU institutions is linked to trust in
national institutions. What are the mechanisms behind confidence in EU gover-
nance among national officials?
The field of civil protection, we believe, can serve as a crucial case for examining
this issue. After all, a high degree of trust in crisis-management systems is generally
deemed essential for their proper functioning (Christensen et al., 2016a; Nohrstedt
et al., 2018; Parker et al., 2018). Moreover, the field of civil protection has recently
emerged as one of the most important policy areas in the EU. Recent crises –
terrorist attacks, natural hazard events, the migration crisis – have put civil-
protection systems in Europe to the test. In response to these crises, many with
a transboundary dimension, the Union has increased its efforts in the area of civil
protection to provide aid to countries in need of assistance and to bolster its
capacity to conduct joint operations (Backman and Rhinard, 2018; Boin et al.,
2013, 2014; Kuipers et al., 2015; Widmalm et al. 2019). Due to the transboundary
nature of many crises, such as floods or wildfires, there is an obvious need for EU
members to be able to work together across borders and within a European frame-
work. For this reason one might expect this to be an issue area in which the
attitudes national officials hold about national and European-level institutions
would be closely aligned. Little is known, however, about how much trust national
officials in this area actually have in the EU’s ability to provide assistance when it
is needed or to help solve joint problems.
Opinion polls have shown that a large majority of European citizens support a
joint civil-protection policy among the member states. There is a strong consensus
that coordinated EU action is needed to respond to disasters (European
Commission, 2017a). Studies have furthermore shown that, in countries where
citizens are treated fairly and impartially by their own national institutions
of public administration, people are less likely to support EU-coordinated civil-
protection efforts. By contrast, in countries where citizens perceive their govern-
ment’s treatment of them to be biased and unfair, citizens tend to support
EU-coordinated civil protection (Persson et al., 2017). This finding is associated
with the ‘compensation’ model, according to which people hailing from countries
with institutions that inspire little trust – where they are seen as corrupt and low
performing – will be more inclined to support EU-level solutions. We contend,
however, that the relationship may well go in the opposite direction when it comes
to the willingness of public officials to grant more power to the EU. This would be
more in line with the ‘congruence’ model.
In this article, we explore how trust in EU institutions is linked to politics at the
national level. In addition, we suggest three mechanisms that can account for the
relationship. First, in line with previous studies that have pointed to a strong
connection between how citizens evaluate the EU-level system and how they
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European Union Politics 20(4)
view the functioning of their own national system (e.g. Anderson, 1998; Kritzinger,
2003; Mu~
noz et al., 2011), we suggest a simple ‘transference’ mechanism, which
can be either positive (‘congruence’) or negative (‘compensation’). Second, the link
between trust in national systems and in the Union may reflect some kind of
underlying generalized trust, rather than trust in specific national institutions; we
refer to this as the ‘trust syndrome’ mechanism (Harteveld et al., 2013: 20). Third,
institutional trust may derive from a ‘rational calculation’ mechanism based on the
procedures and perceived performance of institutions at both levels (Harteveld
et al., 2013; Mu~
nos, 2017: 77).
Theory and hypotheses
We understand trust in institutions as an attitude relating to, on the one hand, an
existing set of political institutions, such as parliament, government, courts, or, in
our case, civil-protection agencies; and, on the other hand, legislators, political
office holders, judges and public officials (cf. Norris, 2017; van der Meer and
Zmerli, 2017: 4). Institutional trust thus relates to a specific set of objects (insti-
tutions and actors within those institutions), and not to more abstract concepts like
society more generally or its ideals and principles. It thus refers to what Newton
and Norris (2000: 53) argue is ‘the central indicator of the underlying feeling of the
general public about its polity’ (although the focus in our case is on public officials
rather than the general public).
We are thus examining the extent to which officials working in national civil-
protection institutions tend to trust their own institutions on the one hand,
and EU-level institutions on the other. Institutional trust should moreover be
distinguished from interpersonal trust, which refers to the particular trust that
individuals may feel for specific people or...
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