Bad Policies and the Erosion of Trust in Comparative Perspective

This chapter considers the comparative impact of ineffective policies on declining trust in government and its impact on the policy process. It relies on the most recent module from the 2016 International Social Survey Program’s (ISSP) series on the “Role of Government,” which was only recently made available to researchers. This survey measures individual satisfaction with several policy outcomes, as well as the fairness of bureaucratic processes and trust in government. Ineffective policy is operationalized using two approaches derived from these data, both of which are based on respondents’ evaluation of public policies in different countries. The first approach emphasizes perceptions of policy effectiveness in providing health care, maintaining adequate standards of living, and managing national security threats. The second approach emphasizes perceptions of negative policy outcomes requiring changes in spending levels across a variety of policy domains. Results from multilevel models suggest that when the public perceives policy ineffectiveness, their trust in government and perceptions of bureaucratic fairness decline. As a result, the ability of the public to use the policy process to transform ineffective policies erodes and public accountability over the policy process disappears, resulting in a downward spiral of bad policy outcomes and declining trust in public servants and institutions.