Engaging the Extremes: How to reach out to the ends of the political spectrum to promote mutual understanding and improve the perception of fairness in public finance.

AuthorHarward, Brian

One of the driving forces behind movements to improve perceptions of fairness is to repair the lack of trust in government, (1) so understanding why mistrust exists is important.

Mistrust in the government is often attributable to: (2,3)

* a perception that government uses its power against citizens [by taxing and fining] while providing benefits to special interests;

* a feeling of disconnect from government;

* a sense that government services are ineffective or inadequate;

* perceptions that government routinely fails to address their needs, leading citizens to feel powerless, disaffected, and alienated.

The remedies to these problems are closely linked. (4) Governments can help improve conditions in the community and provide good services. They can also pursue strategies to engage the public, provide information about the good government does, and look for opportunities to improve government's reputation. This will increase trust and decrease cynicism. These strategies may convince citizens that the government supports their needs rather than neglecting or working against them. You can learn more about how to optimize these strategies in the GFOA report: "Transparency: A Means to Improving Citizen Trust in Government." (5)

Beyond the benefits of efforts to manage engagement and reputation, there are other factors important to understanding trust in government. First, despite the concern about decreasing trust in government, most people still have a reasonable amount of trust in their local governments. (6) This means there is only so much room to enhance trust, even if citizens express disagreement with government. (7) [Of course, with the events of recent years, it is reasonable to question how easily that level of trust can be maintained.]

Second, though corruption and incompetence in government are real, citizens form much of their opinion from first-hand experience. If programs are functioning well, most people are willing to express support for government, even if the design of the program does not fit the citizen's ideal [e.g., the program is too generous or is not generous enough]. (8) Thus, if local governments can perform basic services competently, they should be able to maintain a fair level of trust with the public. (9)

Third, and the main subject of this article, is that nothing a government can do is likely to change deep, moral convictions held by citizens. For example, people have convictions about government's role in redistributing wealth through taxing and spending, and government policy is unlikely to change that. (10,11) In Part l (12) of our series on the behavioral science of justice and fairness, we introduced the concept of "procedural justice," which means that people with differences of opinion in how to govern are likely to accept decisions as long as they find the process used to reach decisions to be fair, especially if they are allowed to participate. (13,14) For many people, procedural justice may be enough to offset their concerns that a decision does not match their preferences. However, when the decision is seen to go against a person's moral convictions, procedural justice may not be sufficient. In Part 2, (15) we discussed "moral foundations theory" and its application to political beliefs. We discussed that liberals and conservatives emphasize different values. Appealing to those values is a way to overcome political disagreements.

This leads us to the topic of this article: distrust, opposition, and the political extremes. Though people at the political extremes are, by definition, a small minority, there are some reasons why it is important to engage them. First, they are citizens within a democratic system, so they have the same right to be heard and understood as anyone else. Second, people on the extremes are often more vocal than those with moderate views, so public officials may find themselves in conversation with people on the extremes more often than the size of the extremes would suggest. Third, extreme views are probably less common among government officials, so most officials don't have a firsthand understanding of these views.

We can think of people at the political extremes as being more sensitive to how government policy matches or does not match their moral values. Thus, understanding the moral concerns behind their opposition and distrust will be needed to have productive conversations or reach mutually agreeable resolutions. In the rest of this paper, we will examine how public officials might engage with the extremes, using...

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