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Chapter 4. Trust
- University of Ottawa Press
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Chapter 4 Trust Trust is a multifaceted concept in terms of how governments seek, retain, and deploy legitimacy and support in their pursuit of policies and actions tied to the public interest. Democratic legitimacy - recognition andconsent granted by the citizenry to the political institutions - is a central andfluid concern in the e-government era. Driving thisfluidity is a growing body of evidence pointing to declining public confidence in government, heightened suspicion and cynicism toward traditional authoritative bodies, and a shifting of sociopolitical and civic activity to organizations and venues outside the traditional state apparatus. In light of such trends, proponents of e-democracy seek new opportunities for more direct and continualforms of public participation. While callsfor such expanded engagement predate the Internet, online connectivity is a powerful vehicle to both distribute information and power and sharedecisionmaking . Within the public sector too, trust is a key enabler of governance innovation and reform, as horizontal and networking arrangements involve greater employee empowerment and engagement than hierarchical controls. Indeed, of thefour dimensions, trust is the most pervasive in underpinning not only the specific technical and policy requirements of service and security efforts but also the ability of governments to work in concert with all sectors in a collective, innovative, and adaptive manner. The chapter begins with a general consideration of why trust matters as an essential piece of the e-government puzzle. Section 4.2 examines its more specific application to public engagement and the shift —underpinned in part by online connectivity - tomore participative democratic ties between citizens and governments. The importance of employee engagement in terms of external information flows and of disseminating and reporting information online is then considered in section 4.3. Trust's role as a key variable in public sector reform and employee engagement - the new relational and skills challenges facing public servants - is thefocus of section 4.4. How these new skills and capacities translate into stakeholder engagement and a basis for collective engagement is thefinal topic in section 4.5. Part One then concludes with a summary of the major themes and issues emerging from thefirst four chapters that will serve as a basisfor an assessment of e-government in the Canadian public sector. 78 E-GOVERNMENT IN CANADA 4.1 Why Trust Matters The notion of trust is extremely complex—one that is said to be both ubiquitous in our society and difficult to define and understand in the abstract (O'Hara 2004). So much about trust depends on context, whether political, economic, social, organizational, cultural, or technological. Most dictionary definitionsof trust refer to traits such as integrity, confidence, and certaintyextended by one or more individuals to another person or thing (e.g., an organization or institution): the result is a condition in which one is (relatively or entirely) free from doubt. Trust isintertwined with governance in dealing with twocritical aspects of coordination and organization: change and uncertainty on the one hand, and cooperation or collaboration on the other hand.1 The increasingly fluid context of a globalizing, interconnected, and interdependent world mecins that trust lies at the heart of the search for good governance. In regard to change and uncertainty, although there is much rhetoric in the business and political worlds about embracing change as a positive, enjoyable process, the reality is that, for most people and organizations, change is uncomfortable (Stevenson 1998). Order and rules, in contrast, facilitate routine and certainty, which are necessary for civilized and predictable patterns ofworking and living, and a key purpose of bureaucracy continues to be underpinning such patterns, rendering them both recognizable and respected—or at least subscribed or deferredto in some manner. In a relativelystable environment, large organizations can function wellwith this sort ofsystem—provided that there are reasonably successful outcomes to underpin the credibility of the existing order or sufficient incentives or limitations in placeto limit dissent. As such, what is particularly central to such an order—which breeds hierarchy and control—is deferenceto authority and expertise (Essex and Kusy 1999). In the public sector realm, such is the basis for representative democracy. In today's world, the notion of trust in government policy making and political decision making is multifaceted and complex. For example, in equating trust with political support, Parent et al. (2004) nonetheless distinguish between specific and diffuse forms of trust —the former in reference to specific outputs, and the latter in terms of overall political objectives and governing ideology. Such a [54.242.75.224] Project MUSE (2024-03-19 11...