Does enforcement style influence citizen trust in regulatory agencies? An experiment in six countries

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Grimmelikhuijsen, Stephan; Aleksovska, Marija; van Erp, Judith; Gilad, Sharon; Maman, Libby; Bach, Tobias; Kappler, Moritz; Van Dooren, Wouter; Schomaker, Rahel M.; Salomonsen, Heidi Houlberg
• 署名单位: Utrecht University; Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Hebrew University of Jerusalem; University of Oslo; University of Antwerp; Aarhus University
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION RESEARCH AND THEORY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1053-1858
• DOI: 10.1093/jopart/muae018
• 发表日期: 2025
• 页码: 29-44
• 关键词: government; governance; authority

摘要

Establishing and maintaining citizen trust is vital for the effectiveness and long-term viability of regulatory agencies. However, limited empirical research has been conducted on the relationship between regulatory action and citizen trust. This article addresses this gap by investigating the influence of various regulatory enforcement styles on citizen trust. We conducted a pre-registered and representative survey experiment in six countries (n = 5,765): Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Israel, the Netherlands, and Norway. Our study focuses on three key dimensions of enforcement style: formalism, coerciveness, and accommodation. We hypothesize that a strict and punitive enforcement style with minimal accommodation will enhance citizen trust. Surprisingly, we found no overall effect of enforcement on trust. However, specifically high levels of formalism (strictness) and coerciveness (punitiveness) exhibited a small positive effect on trust. Furthermore, we observed no discernible impact of an accommodative enforcement style. Additional analyses revealed that the effects of enforcement style were not consistent across country and regulatory domains. This suggests we need to reconsider assumptions underlying enforcement theory, as our findings imply that public trust seems less conditional on heavy-handed enforcement than initially anticipated.