How Intergovernmental Interactions Can Shape Citizens’ Political Trust in Times of Crisis: Results from a Survey in Six Countries

There is little to no research on how decision-making processes leading to the adoption of crisis-mitigating measures affects citizens’ political trust. However, research shows that citizens’ trust in government is an important precondition for their compliance with crisis measures. In this paper, we look at the effect of intergovernmental consultation, i.e., a level of government consulting another level of government prior to taking a crisis mitigating measure, on citizens trust in that government level to take the measure. We hypothesize, based on literature on intergovernmentalism and perceptions of shared- and self-rule in federations, that citizens welcome intergovernmental interaction, and thus that their trust in a government level to take a measure increases if the measure was taken after consulting governments at different levels. Furthermore, we expect different effects of consultation in different types of political systems. We base our study on original survey data from six EU member states and conclude that intergovernmental interaction can lead to an increase in trust in government at a certain level, but only when trust in that government is low.