Strengthening Trust by Design: A QCA Study of Design Choices in Regulatory Regimes

ABSTRACT How can the design of regulatory regimes foster trust in those regimes? In food safety, finance, and data protection regulation, regulatory frameworks have been reformed to restore trust after regulatory failures. Using fuzzy‐set qualitative comparative analysis, this paper seeks to identify how key design choices—centralization of competencies in one versus multiple regulatory agencies, agency independence, mandated interactions, and rules perceived as appropriate—combine in fostering both trust in the regime itself and between its actors. Rule appropriateness is found to be a necessary condition for trust, while the combination of centralized regulatory competencies with dense information sharing is particularly effective in building regime trust. Alternatively, trust can emerge in regimes with multiple independent agencies under specific configurations. By integrating diverse data sources and adopting a cross‐sectoral, cross‐national approach, this paper provides a fine‐grained understanding of how design elements shape trust, offering lessons to scholars and policymakers on crafting resilient and trusted regulatory frameworks.