Er det mulig å administrere seg frem til mer tillitsfulle innbyggere? En analyse av hvordan tiltak for innbyggermedvirkning i norske kommuner påvirker innbyggernes tillit til kommunepolitikerne

Abstract

Local governments in Norway have over the last decades implemented an increasing number of measures to facilitate citizen participation in local decision-making processes. At the same time, local politicians have enjoyed high levels of public trust. The goal of this thesis is to examine if measures for citizen participation influences citizens’ political trust. Two surveys are used to investigate this; a citizen survey and a survey on local government organization. The citizen participation measures are divided into three different indexes; consultation, dialogue possibilities and fixed channels for citizen participation. The methodological approach is a multilevel analysis of whether high index scores in local governments have an impact on citizens’ political trust. The analysis shows that only the index for consultation has a significant effect. This index includes measures like public meetings, hearings, citizen surveys and public brainstorming sessions. The findings indicate that it is possible to use citizen participation measures as a means to increase public trust in local government, but suggests that it only applies to a certain type of measures where citizens are invited to express their opinions. It is important to emphasize that it might not be the participation in itself that is important to increase political trust, but that opportunities for participation in decision-making processes might make the democracy appear open and accessible.