The Role of Trust in the Modern Administrative State

• Author: Seok-Eun Kim
• DOI: 10.1177/0095399705278596
• Published date: 01 November 2005
• Date: 01 November 2005

ADMINISTRA
Kim / R
TION & SOCIETY / No
OLE OF TR
vember 2005
UST IN THE ADMINISTRATIVE STATE
10.1177/0095399705278596
THE ROLE OF TRUST IN THE
MODERN ADMINISTRATIVE STATE
An Integrative Model
SEOK-EUN KIM
Kansas State University
There is a growing consensus that trust may resolve an enduring tension between political
accountability and managerial flexibility in the modern administrative state. This complex
issue is dealt with by the development of a model of public trust in government. Theoretical
foundationsare drawn from a wide range of social science literature in conceptualizingtrust,
identifying factors affecting the trustworthiness of government, and exploring behavioral
implications for effective governance. An empirical test of the present model remains for fu-
ture research. However, the model suggests that a trustworthy government requires both ac-
countability and flexibility of administration and that trust would serve as a key variable in
reconciling this tension by expandingcitizens’willingness to accept government authority.
Keywords: public trust; citizen compliance; trust model; trustworthy government
Public trust has been an issue in public administration since the found-
ing of the American system (Herring, 1936; Thompson, 1993). Trust in
government ebbs and flows whenever political turmoil such as the Water-
gate scandal and the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, provokes
alarm across the United States. Even when there is not sufficient political
turmoil to inspire general interest, trust is still a major issue for students of
public administration because successful governance requires public sup-
port for the implementation of policy programs (Miller, 1974; The Panel
on Civic Trust and Citizen Responsibility, 1999; Ruscio, 1997). Trust has
to stay above some minimal level if public policy programs are to continue
to function.
Although maintaining a high level of trust in government is important,
public distrust in American government does not indicate a crisis or even a
problem with democratic governance. The American system was founded
ADMINISTRATION & SOCIETY, Vol. 37 No. 5, November 2005 611-635
DOI: 10.1177/0095399705278596
© 2005 Sage Publications
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on a distrust in government (Herring, 1936). Fears of possible abuse of
power, shared by both the public at large and the elite, led to the creation of
an elaborate system of checks and balances that was designed to enhance
accountability of the government at the expense of efficiency and effec-
tiveness. Thus, Thompson (1993) claimed that American government is
not designed to optimize performance but rather to inhibit it.
Nevertheless, the public has increasingly demanded higher quality ser-
vices from the government, often beyond its real competence. People
want better health care benefits, higher quality educational services, and
superior crime prevention systems, but they do not want to share in the
expenses necessary to make such higher quality services possible. The
resulting mismatch between the public’s expectations and the govern-
ment’s actual performance contributes to the pervasive belief that public
employees are incompetent, wasteful, dishonest, and untrustworthy.
However, relatively little research has been directed toward exploring the
role of the government and its employees in shaping public attitudes
toward building a more trustworthy government. Building institutional
trustworthiness of government is important because it can increase the
probability of citizens’ cooperative behavior and compliance with
government decisions by sharing common values and obligations to
governments.
The present study begins by observing the shortcomings of current
research on public trust in government agencies and their employees.
Despite the wide range of discussions and concerns about trust in govern-
ment, the complexity of trust has remained unsettled for several reasons:
the enduring challenge in conceptualizing trust, disagreement about what
constitutes a trustworthy government, and lack of discussion about the
behavioral consequences of trust relationships between government
agencies and the public. To address these shortcomings, this article pro-
poses an integrative model of public trust, focusing on factors affecting
trustworthy government, which may resolve an enduring tension between
the demand for political accountability and the need for managerial
flexibility in the modern administrative state.
COMPETING EXPECTATIONS
AND THE ROLE OF TRUST
The problem of trust in government is at the heart of the American
political system, wherein the need for efficient administration requires

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Kim / ROLE OF TRUST IN THE ADMINISTRATIVE STATE
613
that public employees retain some level of managerial discretion, while
the demand for government accountability often calls for limiting that dis-
cretion (Ruscio, 1997). American political theories are often quite explicit
in their inherent distaste for strong bureaucratic powers because of con-
cern about ensuring accountability. This attitude is manifest in the U.S.
Constitution that created a formal set of checks and balances to limit any
possible abuses of political powers.
However, the growth of an administrative state often requires that dis-
cretionary powers be available to provide the necessary flexibility to deal
with the ever-increasing complexity of public problems. In fact, the Con-
stitutional framers, while attempting to constrain powerful authorities,
recognized the necessity of a managerial flexibility for efficient adminis-
tration. This tension is evident in the U.S. legal system where courts have
granted the doctrine of sovereign immunity for nearly two centuries to
protect governments from civil litigation (Jean & Leguey, 1998).
Although the U.S. courts have increasingly allowed governments to be
sued (e.g., Monell v. Department of Social Services of the City of New
York, 1978), this principle of government immunity has nevertheless
contributed extensively to the growth of an administrative state.
The emergence of the administrative state seems inevitable, but the
gulf between flexibility and accountability has continued to widen. Dis-
trust created an elaborate system of checks and balances for ensuring
bureaucratic accountability, but procedural rules and regulations have
correspondingly prevented public employees from producing their best
work. This suggests a fundamental conflict between the need for the pro-
tection of individual rights from governmental abuses of power and the
more pragmatic need for efficient administration. Thus, Ruscio (1999)
observed that “trust in the modern administrative state is the product of a
tension between the managerial imperative of discretion and the political
imperative of accountability” (p. 641).
Ruscio (1997) believed that trust helps alleviate the tension emanating
from the competing expectations in that it permits the delegation of discre-
tion to an administrative agency in an environment of institutional con-
straints. A high level of trust cannot necessarily replace time-honored sys-
tems of accountability, but “it can make them less intrusive, providing
discretion for managers and a greater willingness to delegate” (pp. 454-
455). A case study found that increasing employee discretion resulted in
improved organizational performance with elevated employee self-
esteem and work responsibility (Harris, 1994). With increased discretion
over their jobs and responsibilities, public employees could more

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ADMINISTRATION & SOCIETY / November 2005
effectively deal with practical problems that often strike a snag in a rigid
and complex mechanism of accountability.
On the other side of the coin, trust increases the likelihood that the pub-
lic will voluntarily accept most of the decisions made by the government.
Voluntary compliance with organizational authorities is important
because it makes those authorities function effectively (Tyler, 1998). As
Tyler (1998) contends, government authorities face limits in forcing the
public to comply with all of the decisions and rules made by government
agencies. The use of coercive means to induce compliance may be costly
or even intolerable. Thus, it is becoming increasingly apparent that volun-
tary compliance may be a key component of successful policy implemen-
tation. In the 1990 U.S. Census, for example, the state of Georgia lost $2
billion in federal money because of the undercount of an estimated
142,425 people, or 2.2% of the state’s population. Much depends on the
public’s cooperation—that is, “filling out the form and sending it back to
the Census Bureau” (McKinney, 2000, p. 1).
NEED FOR A MODEL OF PUBLIC TRUST
The significance of trust in effective governance suggests that the
development of a model of public trust is both timely and practical. The
underlying assumption of the trust model development reflects a belief
that a parsimonious model with a manageable number of factors could
provide a solid basis for the empirical study of trust in government agen-
cies (Mayer, Davis, & Schoorman, 1995). The motivation for developing
a model of public trust is twofold: (a) the deficiency of the previous model
suggested in the trust literature; and (b) the establishment of trust as a con-
struct distinct from other similar concepts such as confidence.
The concept of trust is widely recognized across disciplines. Neverthe-
less, public...