Policy & Internet
www.policyandinternet.org
Vol. 2: Iss. 1, Article 2 (2010)
Transparency of Public
Decision-Making: Towards Trust
in Local Government?
Stephan G. Grimmelikhuijsen, Utrecht University
Abstract
Online minutes of local councils offer the opportunity to look behind the scenes of
local government decision-making. Will this transparency, as promised, lead to
higher levels of trust? This issue was investigated by conducting an experiment
comparing participants who did not access the available information, people who
were only allowed restricted information about the minutes, and those who were
shown the full minutes of the local council.
Results indicated that people exposed to more information were significantly more
negative regarding perceived competence of the council compared to those who did
not access the available information. Additionally, participants who received only
restricted information about the minutes thought the council was less honest
compared to those who did not read them.
The relationship between transparency and trust is influenced partly by the
perceived credibility of the message on the website. Also, knowledge about the
decision-making process appears to shift judgment criteria. People well informed
about the process are inclined to base their judgment of perceived competence on
this knowledge and less on message credibility.
A theoretical explanation for the negative effect of transparency of public decision-
making is sought in the expectations of the public versus the reality. A lower
perceived competence by those who had access to full information might be
explained by a gap between public expectations of rational decision-making and the
reality of the chaos involved in public decision-making exposed through
transparency.
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© 2010 Policy Studies Organization
Author Notes: The author would particularly like to thank Albert Meijer, Mark
Bovens and Marianne van der Steeg for their valuable comments on an earlier
version of this paper. Also, a previous version was presented in the E-Government
Studygroup at the EGPA conference in September 2009. Among other useful
comments of participants, the author would especially like to thank Karl Löfgren,
Arthur Edwards, William Webster and Hein van Duivenboden for their constructive
suggestions. Additionally, the author thanks three anonymous reviewers for their
helpful comments on this paper.
Keywords: openness, websites, experiment, trust
Recommended Citation:
Grimmelikhuijsen, Stephan G. (2010) "Transparency of Public Decision-Making:
Towards Trust in Local Government?" Policy & Internet: Vol. 2: Iss. 1, Article 2.
DOI: 10.2202/1944-2866.1024
http://www.psocommons.org/policyandinternet/vol2/iss1/art2
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Policy & Internet, Vol. 2 [2010], Iss. 1, Art. 2
http://www.psocommons.org/policyandinternet/vol2/iss1/art2
DOI: 10.2202/1944-2866.1024
Introduction
The transparency of public decision-making by local councils is well
established in the Netherlands. The minutes of local council meetings are
nearly literal transcriptions of the councillors’ deliberations and decision-
making processes, and in this sense, local council minutes give a unique
behind the scenes look into local government. But what happens to trust in
government when citizens take the opportunity to really examine the minutes
of local government? Does this lead to disappointment with the actual
process of public decision-making, or does it influence citizens to trust the
local council? The effect of transparency on trust remains disputed, and
although some studies have been conducted, the amount of empirical
research on this topic remains limited (Tolbert & Mossberger, 2006). If there
is research on this relationship, causal mechanisms cannot be inferred. This
study aims to contribute empirically to the debate on the connection between
transparency and trust.
The Internet has been a global catalyst for disclosure of government
information, and information can now be disclosed at relatively low cost
without the traditional boundaries of space and time (Margetts, 2006: 197;
Curtin & Meijer, 2006; Welch et al., 2005). This leads to a central question:
Does transparency of public decision-making affect citizen trust in
government?
This is a relevant question, as municipalities are the most visited
government organizations on the Internet, and the government organization
closest to citizens (see Pina et al., 2007; Van Dijk et al., 2008). Local
councils are also seen as important government bodies in the Netherlands,
since they are the public bodies formally in charge of their respective
municipalities.
1
Whether transparency of government leads to higher levels of trust is
discussed in depth throughout the literature. There is a widely shared opinion
that transparency will lead to an open culture in government that benefits us
all (Hood, 2006b). It is ultimately seen as ‘something good’ which will
eventually increase citizen trust in government (Brin, 1998; Oliver, 2004).
On the other hand, scholars argue that a greater degree of transparency
generates the possibility to (unjustly) repeatedly blame the government for
1
Article 125, section 1. The Constitution of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The
executive administration consists of a mayor and several aldermen, which is controlled
and partly directed by the local council in a municipality.
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Grimmelikhuijsen: Transparency of Local Public Decision-Making
© 2010 Policy Studies Organization
mistakes. Bovens (2003) warns about this ‘dark side of transparency’: that
when people can see everything behind the scenes of government, they may
become disenchanted with government. According to Bovens, a fault by
government can always be construed, and if citizens, media and politicians
use transparency for their own gain with no restraints, this could result in the
‘politics of scandal.’ As a result, transparency could contribute to political
cynicism, and citizen trust in government might even decline.
The decline of trust in government has been a cause for concern in
recent years in the Netherlands and for decades in the US (Tolbert &
Mossberger, 2006; Nye, 2007). Transparency is often proposed as a panacea
for better governance in general and for combating declining trust levels in
particular (Norris, 2001: 113; Hood, 2006a: 4-5), and increasing government
transparency has been one of the major aims of reform initiated in nearly all
OECD countries (Pollitt & Bouckaert, 2004).
The central question explored in this paper is examined by using an
experimental design. Three groups of subjects were each presented with a
different level of transparency in information given to them about public
decision-making. The first group was given information that revealed a high
level of transparency about the decision-making process, the second group
with a low level of transparency (limited information), and the third group
with no transparency or information about the process at all. The degree of
trust in government of these three different groups was then compared.
The experimental design helps to make causal inferences about the
transparency and trust relationship. First, the mechanism through which
transparency leads to trust is tested using a research model that includes the
role of information credibility and knowledge about the local council.
Second, several hypotheses are tested to shed light on the specific
differences in trust between experimental groups.
Trust and Transparency
Three Dimensions of Perceived Trustworthiness
Trust is a multidisciplinary concept with a wide variety of definitions.
Because of this, Rousseau et al. (1998) tried to formulate an overarching
definition of trust. Confident expectations and a willingness to be vulnerable
(Mayer et al., 1995) are critical components of all definitions. Based on
these elements, Rousseau et al. define trust as ‘a psychological state
comprising the intention to accept vulnerability based upon positive
expectations of the intentions or behavior of another’ (Rousseau et al., 1998:
395). This means that trust is viewed as the perceived trustworthiness of
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Policy & Internet, Vol. 2 [2010], Iss. 1, Art. 2
http://www.psocommons.org/policyandinternet/vol2/iss1/art2
DOI: 10.2202/1944-2866.1024
another. This concept is acknowledged by many scholars to be
multidimensional (McKnight & Chervany, 2006; Rousseau et al., 1998;
Mishra, 1996; Mayer et al., 1995). In this paper, three dimensions of
perceived trustworthiness are distinguished: competence, benevolence, and
honesty.
First, many authors on trust find some form of perceived competence
to be a part of trustworthiness. Some call it ‘ability’ (Jarvenpaa et al., 1998),
‘effectiveness’ (Hetherington, 1998) or ‘expertise’ (Peters et al., 1997). Yet
the differences in meaning are small, as they all refer to some kind of
capability to act. In this paper, this refers to whether people perceive a
government organization to be capable, effective, skilful or professional in
making decisions.
Second, many scholars regard perceived benevolence to be a part of
trustworthiness. This can be viewed as an ethical dimension of
trustworthiness; it particularly focuses on the intention of government action.
Some authors call this dimension ‘care’ (Peters et al., 1997), ‘commitment’
(Levi & Stoker, 1998) or ‘concern’ Mishra (1996). For this study, this refers
to whether people think that a local council genuinely cares about the
citizens living in their municipality.
Third, many scholars identify perceived honesty or integrity of the
trustee. In this paper, perceived honesty implies that the local council is
perceived to keep commitments and tell the truth (McKnight et al., 2002;
Kim, 2005). Now that the concept of perceived ‘trustworthiness’ has been
made clear, the next section elaborates on the definition and concept of
‘transparency’.
Transparency: Watching Government from the Outside
Transparency is a nebulous concept. Definitions, if available at all, are
mostly metaphorical and very general - they talk of ‘lifting the veil of
secrecy’ (Davis, 1998) and ‘the ability to look clearly through the windows
of an institution’ (Den Boer 1998: 105). Nevertheless, nearly all definitions
of government transparency have one element in common: they refer to the
extent to which an organization reveals relevant information about its
internal workings, such as decision processes, procedures, functioning and
performance (Wong & Welch, 2004; Curtin & Meijer, 2006; Gerring &
Thacker, 2004). This includes the following:
- A component about the active disclosure of information by an
organization.
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Grimmelikhuijsen: Transparency of Local Public Decision-Making
© 2010 Policy Studies Organization
