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theses

Performance theory holds that better government performance leads to citizen trust. Nonetheless, the nature of the relationship between performance and trust continues to elude researchers because of the possibility of reverse causality. To strengthen the validity of causal inference, researchers need to look for naturally occurring changes in factors that affect performance and in turn trust in government. The Great Recession that began around 2008 provides an opportunity to better demonstrate a causal relationship between government performance and citizen trust because it represents an exogenous shock to both the macro- and micro- performance of government, particularly in several southern European countries most profoundly affected by the crisis. Therefore, the purpose of this dissertation is to probe the causal relationship between government performance and citizen trust in Europe in the context of the Great Recession. This dissertation uses a mixed method approach that involves both in-depth case studies and analyses of large survey data. Comparative case studies of eight European countries are based on reviewing literature and conducting semi-structured interviews with 16 public administration experts. In addition to the case studies, this dissertation tests the hypothesis by comparing citizen trust in government in Spain with that of Germany and the Netherlands before and after the Great Recession, using the World Values Survey. Furthermore, it compares before-after trends in citizen trust in government in Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain, with that of Belgium, France, Germany, and the Netherlands using the European Social Survey. The findings of the case studies provide evidence that government performance in the southern European countries was diminished to a large extent as a result of the Great Recession. The difference-in-differences regression results from both data sets show that the Great Recession negatively affected citizen trust in government, corroborating performance theory. The largest decline of trust was observed for central government among various government institutions examined. Furthermore, this dissertation finds that the Great Recession erodes trust of low-income citizens more than high-income citizens. Drawing on these case studies and survey results, implications for performance theory and public management practice are discussed.

ETD_7817

Ph.D.

Includes bibliographical references

by Yunsoo Lee

doi:10.7282/T3RJ4MW2

ETD doctoral

The author owns the copyright to this work.