Gaining trust through consultation? How intergovernmental interactions influences citizens’ political trust in times of crisis

This paper looks at the effect of intergovernmental relations on citizens’ trust in government during crises, as it is an important determinant of a successful crisis response. We use original survey data of 6000 citizens, obtained in six unitary and multilevel EU member states. We find, among other results, that citizens who express low trust in a certain level of government to take a restrictive or supportive crisis measure, are inclined to trust that level of government more when it has taken the measure after consulting other government levels. On the contrary, for citizens who already highly trust a government to manage a crisis, trust in that government declines after consultation.