Column | Trust – NRC

Confidence in government seems like a glacier in the summer sun lately: bit by bit, pieces are melting off. According to the last poll from I&O Research, which appeared on Thursday, 34 percent of Dutch people still trust the government; 2 percent less than in last month’s measurement.

Compared to other OECD countries, the Netherlands still scores well, according to the first major report this week OECD study to trust in 22 countries. In this measurement (done in 2021), 49 percent of the Dutch trusted the government, above the OECD average of 41 percent.

Which category do I actually fall into, I wondered as I looked at the bar charts. What would I answer if someone asked me if I trust the government? That is quite a difficult question. I generally trust the good intentions of politicians, I don’t think they want to cheat. But I don’t trust that they always tell the truth, that they put the common good above their own self-interest in all cases, and even if they do, I don’t necessarily trust that they are competent enough to do the right thing. to make choices.

So how you answer the question depends on which aspect you are thinking about. And also what your comparison material is. Even if my trust in the government is a bit less, I’m glad I live in the Netherlands and not in Russia, just to name a few. If I take that relative position into account, I certainly give my confidence a pass.

So the question is what exactly it means when people indicate that they do not trust the government. And the next question is related to this: how serious it is if that trust decreases.

‘Trust’ is a word with a good image, just like love and openness, for example. But as with those other terms, whether it is indeed a good thing depends on the context. Love for bad people is bad, openness to the enemy is bad, and trust in a rogue person or agency just as much.

It is too quickly assumed that trust is always worth pursuing, according to Harvard political scientist Pippa Norris in her new book In Praise of Skepticismwhich will be published in early August – the first three chapters are already online. According to Norris, someone can too too many to have faith: credulity, that’s called. Conspiracy theorists, for example, are cynical about the establishment, but on the contrary, they are gullible about their self-chosen authorities. A lack of trust and an excess of trust go hand in hand here.

Social scientists view trust too much from the eyes of those in authority, Norris writes. For them, a lack of trust is particularly worrying. But a surplus can be just as problematic: if people trust politicians blindly, misconduct can go on with impunity.

A skeptical attitude towards authority is in the middle of the spectrum between cynicism and credulity, according to Pippa Norris. As Aristotle said, every virtue is a middle ground between two vices. I used to think that was a boring open door for Aristotle, but now I think: quite fun and instructive to classify properties on an axis.

According to Norris, trust should not be maximized, but the trustworthiness, or trustworthiness. That is the skeptical judgment of one’s performance, based on three aspects: integrity, impartiality (putting the public interest ahead of self-interest) and competence. These are exactly the three things about which, as I wrote above, I sometimes have doubts. I don’t think that’s overly suspicious of myself, when I look at the past few years. Politicians who demonstrably did not speak the truth, and who therefore score moderately on integrity, are still in their place. Constantly postponing decisions on the nitrogen approach seems to have been in the interest of conflict-avoiding politicians rather than in the public interest. And it doesn’t come across as very competent.

The good news is: if confidence is at least partly related to performance, it can also increase again. In that respect, it looks better for confidence in government than for the glaciers.

Floor Rusman ([email protected]) is editor of NRC