SOCIAL TRUST, IMPARTIAL ADMINISTRATION AND PUBLIC CONFIDENCE IN EU CRISIS MANAGEMENT INSTITUTIONS
| Author | STEN WIDMALM,THOMAS PERSSON,CHARLES F. PARKER |
| Date | 01 March 2017 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/padm.12295 |
| Published date | 01 March 2017 |
doi: 10.1111/padm.12295
SOCIAL TRUST, IMPARTIAL ADMINISTRATION AND
PUBLIC CONFIDENCE IN EU CRISIS MANAGEMENT
INSTITUTIONS
THOMAS PERSSON, CHARLES F. PARKER AND STEN WIDMALM
In this article, we investigate whether differences in social trust and impartial public administration
have an impact on public condence in EU crisis management institutions. Our assessment is based
on a cross-country comparison using aggregate country-level data of the member states in the Euro-
pean Union. Earlier studies on the EU as a crisis manager have not carefully studied to what extent
differences in social trust and administrative culture may or may not matter. Our analysis shows
that in countries where citizens are treated impartially by their own national public administration
institutions, people are less likely to support EU-coordinated civil protection efforts. In contrast, in
places where citizens perceive their government’s treatment of them as partial and unfair, citizens
will tend to support EU-coordinated civil protection.
INTRODUCTION
Contemporary studies of crisis management have paid much attention to organizational
structures and the strategic and operational capacities that countries have when coping
with different types of crises. In the literature these are commonly labelled ‘hardware’
factors. Less attention has been devoted to analysing the so-called ‘software’ factors, that
is, how norms, values, social trust, cultures and other informal structures impact human
action and interaction in a crisis situation (Boin and ’t Hart 2010). However, it is well
known from previous research that software factors such as norms of fairness and impar-
tiality are crucial for effective and legitimate public administration (Rothstein 2011). In a
broader perspective, these are the structures that North (1990) has emphasized as funda-
mental for determining transaction costs in any society. Consequently, it is also important
for crisis management studies to look beyond formal structures and examine the under-
lying determinants that are pivotal if crisis management and civil protection are to be
coordinated more effectively and on a larger scale (Boin and Bynander 2015; Christensen
et al. 2016).
This article aims to investigate whether differences in social trust and impartial pub-
lic administration are related to public condence in EU crisis management institutions.
From a democratic point of view,it is essential for crisis management authorities that they
enjoy the trust of citizens and are perceived as being legitimate and efcient. This issue is
particularly interesting to consider in the context of the EU’s political system, which has
long been considered to be legitimized primarily by what it produces (output legitimacy)
rather than the quality of its democratic processes (input legitimacy) (Scharpf 1999). We
therefore ask: are citizens’ beliefs in the effectiveness of EU-coordinated civil protection
related to social trust and trust in domestic government institutions, and if so how?
Over time, the EU has become increasingly involved in crisis management and different
capacities have been developed to assist in managing various types of crisis, both civilian
and military. The solidarity clause in the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU (Article 222)
Thomas Persson, Charles F. Parker and Sten Widmalm are at the Department of Government, Uppsala University,
Sweden.
Public Administration Vol.95, No. 1, 2017 (97–114)
© 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
98 THOMAS PERSSON ET AL.
introduces a legal obligation that the EU and its member states should assist each other
when an EU country is the object of a terrorist attack or a natural or man-made disaster.
To this end, the EU has created a civil protection mechanism and an accompanying oper-
ational hub in the form of the Emergency Response Coordination Centre (ERCC) which
coordinates the response of the participating countries in the event of a crisis.
However, earlier studies on the EU as crisis manager have often overlooked differences
in social trust and administrative cultures that may impact the effectiveness and legiti-
macy of such institutions (Olsson 2009). Hence, as a rst step, the study presented here
explores the relationship between social trust and public condence in crisis management
institutions in Europe by utilizing existing data on an aggregate country level. Measures
of social trust and administrative culture – our main independent variables – are taken
from the WorldValue Survey and the Quality of Government data sets, whereas our main
indicators of public condence in EU crisis management institutions are drawn from data
contained in a special Eurobarometer survey. Our assessment is based on a cross-country
comparison between 27 member states in the European Union.
The results of our multivariate analysis show that, on an aggregate country level,
social trust measured as general trust in other people appears to be unrelated to pub-
lic condence in EU crisis management institutions. The way public administration
institutions treat citizens, on the other hand, appears to be of importance for citizens’
support for EU-coordinated civil protection. The data indicate that impartial treatment
by national authorities, which is normally considered as central to the legitimacy of
public administration institutions, has a negative correlation with public condence in
EU crisis management authorities. We suggest that this nding can be explained by the
positive expectations citizens hold for EU crisis management authorities when national
administrative authorities function poorly. Conversely, when people know they can trust
national-level institutions, they seem content and see no reason to extend their trust
beyond the borders of their own country. This nding increases our understanding of
the limitations or prospects for more centralized crisis management functions at the
EU level. It also provides a deeper understanding of how people make inferences from
interpersonal trust and trust in national institutions to supranational institutions, and the
kind of rationality that shapes their perceptions.
Although the causal relationships in this problematique should be explored further,the
ndings presented here appear to be robust. After controlling for different measures of
state capacities, such as the public services provided by national institutions, the overall
quality of a country’s infrastructure and the general level of welfare in a given country, the
way national administrations treat their citizens has a signicant correlation with public
condence in EU-level coordination of civil protection. In addition, our results demon-
strate a negative relationship between democratic political culture and public condence
in EU crisis management authorities. The more democratic political culture a country has,
the less likely it is that its citizens will display high levels of condence in EU-coordinated
civil protection. This is consistent with previous research on European integration, which
shows that national circumstances often affect citizens’ attitudes towards the EU and its
institutions (Sánchez-Cuenca 2000; Muños et al. 2011; Armingeon and Ceka 2014).
The article is structured as follows. First, we present the focal points of our study and our
theoretical departure points. Following this, we provide a concise introduction to how the
EU’s role as a crisis manager has grown over time. We then present our data and mea-
sures, which outline our exploration into how differences in social trust and impartial
public administration may have an impact on public condence in EU crisis management
Public Administration Vol.95, No. 1, 2017 (97–114)
© 2016 John Wiley& Sons Ltd.
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