What is the institutional trust of the Dutch citizens towards the government during the corona crisis?
Globally there is a lot of change going on resulting from the COVID-19 virus outbreak, including the Netherlands. Various measures and approaches are being implemented by the national government to try and fight against the virus. It is almost every day now that Dutch society receives press messages from the government about the changing measures and policies being implemented, such as social distancing of 1.5 meters. But, how is the trust of Dutch citizens currently situated towards the government during this pandemic?
The transformational approach to trust, by Roy J. Lewicki et. al. (2006), from the psychological approaches to trust has defined trust to come from(1) predictability (2) dependability (reliability and honesty) and (3) leap of faith. In our opinion, Dutch citizens’ trust towards the government would be that (for a large amount of the citizens) (1) predictability of the government is high; the government will and has taken care of us, (2) dependability is high: the government is and has been reliable and honest and (3) leap of faith is high: the government considers our needs now and in the future, in this case, our health. But what happens to these three aspects with a virus outbreak?
The perception of trust of the Dutch citizens to the government after the Corona crisis remains uncertain. Trust could be harmed if it seems the government failed its mission during the crisis. The ‘leap of faith’ which may have existed before the crisis may be reduced to a zero-trust situation in which the government has to affirm the building blocks of trust according to the transformational approach; be predictable, dependable and show that the Dutch government can be relied upon in times of crisis and in the future.
Depending on how the situation of the virus will continue, what do you as a reader think can happen to the trust of Dutch citizens towards the government? Will the unexpected but fatal pandemic outcomes and actions taken by the government be significant for the trust that the citizens have? If such a situation were to happen again would there be the same amount of trust?
Comment on blog group 3:
ReplyDeleteThis comment is written by group 8. You’ve brought up an interesting topic of discussion! In this corona crisis, trust in the government is very important to be able to steer people in the right direction and to make sure they understand the severeness, and therefore use social distancing.
However, the theory you used from the article of Lewicky is mainly focused on the development of interpersonal relationships, whereas the kind of trust you are describing is focused on institutional trust. We therefore question if this theory can be used to describe the trust in the government. When you only talk about Rutte it might come closer to interpersonal trust, where institutional trust is an underlying factor. Like the example in the article: ‘One may trust one’s stockbroker, but part of this trust is grounded in the fact that the broker’s actions are strongly bound by securities industry laws and regulations.’ (Lewicki et al., 2006, pp. 1011). Thus, citizens' trust in Rutte can be explained by the institution where he is employed, which is bound to legislation and regulation.
Funfact: citizens have more trust in Rutte now than before the corona crisis. After his speech on 16 March 2020, trust in the functioning of Rutte rose to 68 percent, before the crisis this was between 25 and 45 percent (Algemeen Dagblad, 17 march 2020). We think it is extremely hard to answer what will happen with that trust after the crisis or if such a situation were to happen again. We think there is more to it than predictability, dependability and leap of faith. It depends on the outcomes and aftermath of this crisis, as well as the properties of the next crisis that we will face. Also it’s hard to put everyone in the same category when it comes to trusting Rutte. Institutional trust is also not just based on the measures taken by the government but also on other factors such as the state of the economy. Thereby, the amount of trust differs between different population groups. Some occupations are now seen as heroes, however there have been long discussions about their appreciation before the corona crisis. Vital occupations, like health personnel and teachers, have been feeling under-appreciated (and underpaid) by the government for years, which can result in a lower feeling of trust towards the government in comparison to other groups.
Altogether, a very interesting topic to think about. We’re looking forward to your next post!
Algemeen Dagblad. (2020, 17 March). Vertrouwen in Rutte stijgt gigantisch, driekwart Nederlanders steunt corona-aanpak. Retrieved on 10-04-20 from
https://www.ad.nl/politiek/vertrouwen-in-rutte-stijgt-gigantisch-driekwart-nederlanders-steunt-corona-aanpak~aea9e4a3/
Comments by group 11:
ReplyDeleteFirst of all we would like to compliment you on the relevance of the example you connected to the theory. The introductory paragraph is strong, because it draws the attention of the reader while it also ties in well with the rest of your post. However, we also felt the whole introduction of the theory is quite long. When you dive deeper in the example, the connection between the theory and the example gets a bit lost.
Reading further, we feel that your argument could be developed more in depth, which would also improve the connection between the theory and the example. Therefore we would recommend to make more feedbacks to earlier statements. Also, you could give some more explicit examples when stating an action from the Dutch government. For example when saying ‘they failed its mission’, we would like to know what you mean by this. A way in which you could improve it is by taking your picture as a reference and refer back to the theory more within your example. We like the choice for this picture a lot, because it is a very good example of the discrepancy within the government and how this could affect trust. This could have strengthened the statement you want to make even more. We also think that by explaining the picture (in a caption for example), the story picture could make more sense for international readers. Nevertheless, we understand that it’s difficult to achieve a very in depth blog post since the word limit of the post is quite low, but we think that it could have been achieved by making some other parts like the introduction a bit shorter.
We thought of three other small comments when reading the post: First of all, by mentioning the three aspects of trust, the reader gets more of an overview of the context of trust. However, after these aspects are mentioned, further on in the text there is only made a reflection of one of them. To make it complete, we would recommend to touch on all three of them, so your argument becomes complete.Secondly, regarding the sources and statements you made, it was not entirely clear for us where you got the statements from when you talked about the assumed opinion in trust of the Dutch citizens. How do you know that this is the national opinion in the Netherlands? In case this is your own theory, your arguments could be better developed. Lastly, another point at which we missed a practical example, is when the ‘leap of faith’ is discussed. It is good that you elaborate on possible outcomes, but it would make even more sense with a short example about the actual message that you want to bring forward.
Ending with your questions at the end, we first want to compliment you on how you stimulate the reader to critically think not only about how the theory works out, but also about the possible practical implications. In spite of this, we still found it a little hard to form an opinion based on the blog, because it stays a bit superficial. This can be caused by the fact that you want to show the different sides of the story - which is good! - but because you don’t take one clear point of view it is hard base our own opinion on it. Lastly, we would definitely recommend to keep a question at the end, but it might be more powerful if you only keep one or two to make it more compact. Now that there are three questions to think of, the ‘take home message’ feels a little bit chaotic. Choosing more of a focus in the blog and therefore also in your ending questions would make it more complete.
In summary, we like the structure of how you wrote your blog in general, because it alternates theory and practice. The theory is clearly explained. Adding more references to earlier statements will strengthen the overall argument and make the take home message clear for everyone!
This comment is written by group 7.
ReplyDeleteVery interesting topic and connection to transformational approach to trust. As a response to your question at the end, we think that the trust of Dutch citizens towards the government may also depend on their trust in the international community. If there is a high level of trust in the international community and a lot of other countries are for example handling the crisis situation very differently than the Dutch government, this may cause a decrease in trust towards the Dutch government. The last question raised in the blog is very interesting as well, as this might very well be a crucial time for governments to gain or lose trust. It has been a long time since Dutch citizens have experienced a crisis to this extent, and people only accept such enormous current infringements on their freedoms when they have a high level of trust in their government. Another interesting point came to my mind is when the medical experts offer contradicting opinions to the government, in the case of America, which side should people pick to trust.
Dear group 3, your blog has a cogent argument related to theory and supported by examples. However, we think the irony of the image you included should be addressed. We also agree with the comments from group 8 and group 11 that there is another layer of Lewicki theory that should be addressed. More specific, you introduce an institutional issue, or at least partly, and you focus later on mainly on interpersonal trust. That of course creates some tension.
ReplyDelete