Distrust as a tool in an environmental conflict

Risk Analysis, 2009

Previous authors have argued that trust may be based on the extent to which risk communicators are seen as good at discriminating safety from danger, are unbiased in their assessments, and share their audience's values. Residents of two English urban regions rated their trust in six potential sources of information about the risk of contaminated land in their neighborhood (independent scientists; local council property developers; residents' groups; friends and family; local media), and how expert, open, accurate, or biased these sources were and how much they had residents' interests at heart. Overall, scientists were trusted most and developers least, but this was only partly due to their greater perceived expertise. Resident groups and friends/family were also trusted, despite being seen as relatively inexpert, since they scored highly on openness and shared interests, these latter two attributes being more important predictors of trust in individual sources than perceived expertise. We conclude that, where a source is seen as motivated to withhold, distort, or misinterpret information, this will undermine public trust even in apparently knowledgeable sources, hence supporting the view that trust depends on a combination of perceived expertise and perceived motives as complementary processes.

In this article we analyse the effects of expressions of trust and distrust in various sites of interaction in public policy. We analyse interactions between government officials of the Investment Fund for Rural Areas (ILG) in the Netherlands. We found that both trust and distrust were performed in different settings. The distrust performances developed into stories. Through telling and retelling, these stories became dominant in the more non-public settings. As performative stories, they became the basis for further actions. The performances of trust took place in more public settings, but were interpreted as signs of distrust when linked up to stories of distrust. On these sites trust was faked and forced in an attempt to uphold a story of successful policy implantation. We found that the performances of both trust and distrust negatively influenced the course of the ILG. We conclude that expressions of trust, which generally have positive associations, can contribute to distrust and troubled relations within inter-governmental cooperation.

Forest Policy and Economics, 2015

Using insights about in-group and intergroup dynamics from social identity theory and sociology, we studied trust dynamics in intergroup relations in the Baviaanskloof (South Africa) over time. We conclude that ingroup interpretations of intergroup interactions contribute to the lack of trust and ongoing reconstruction of distrust towards the other group. Constructions of group identities and group history reinforce differences between groups, shaping expectations about the behaviour of in-group and out-group members. In this process, seemingly unrelated past events and contextual changes were connected as uncontested arguments as to why the other group could not be trusted. The lack of trust and growing distrust stabilised group dynamics and thus distrust towards the other group. These inter-and in-group dynamics explain why adapting to major environmental changes, and future collaboration becomes more difficult in conflict situations.

Forest Science, 2017

Managing forest use conflicts between different stakeholders is an important part of participatory forest management at the local level. Trust is thought to be an important factor in conflict management. We examined how stakeholders at a local level perceive the role of trust in the development and management of natural resource conflicts. Aggregating data from 24 qualitative semistructured interviews conducted in the German state of Lower Saxony, a conceptual model is proposed that consists of 12 factors that are perceived by the study participants to interact with the relationship between trust and conflict. On the basis of this conceptual model, we provide practical insight for forest managers about how trust can be created and maintained by those involved in participatory forest management.

Planning Theory & Practice, 2019

Trust is vital in participatory planning. To explore the complex relationships between participation and various dimensions of trust and mistrust, this article develops a framework of analysis distinguishing between specific and diffuse forms of institutional trust and mistrust, and illustrates its relevance via two case studies of urban and transport planning in Finland and Sweden. We explore the dynamic coexistence of mistrust towards the specific planning organisations in charge of the projects with the strong 'diffuse' trust in the generic institutions of representative democracy and Nordic planning. The proposed approach can help harness mistrustful civic vigilance for deliberative purposes.

Ecological Economics, 2019

Community energy (CE) features as one among the many novel forms of grassroots innovation that seek to foster sustainability via citizen-led local-level initiatives. The burgeoning research on CE has thus far paid little attention to the role of trust in shaping the conditions of success of CE organisations. Moreover, to the extent that ecological economics has addressed the role of trust in environmental and sustainability policy, it has done so by mainly focusing on the virtues of interpersonal or institutional trust in facilitating environmentally less harmful behaviour at individual, community and national levels. Ecological economics has paid little attention to the complex interaction between different types of trust, and to the potential virtues of mistrust and distrust. To help fill these research gaps, this article first develops a conceptual framework for analysing trust, mistrust and distrust in CE activities, and then illustrates the concepts via an exploratory empirical case of the two CE organisations active in the city of Brighton and Hove, UK. The findings highlight the usefulness of distinguishing between mistrust and distrust; the centrality of the ideological dimension of trust, mistrust and distrust; and the virtues of distrust towards the dominant players in motivating and driving CE activity.

This book chapter probes answers to the following questions: To what extent do suspicions related to science exist and shape global environmental politics? To what extent are their systemic causes known, including the role played by global inequalities in scientific capacity and power? To what extent do participation and scientific capacity reduce suspicions, to the extent that any such exist? On the basis of data and observations derived from review of scholarly literature and from years of empirical research among Brazilian environmental scientists and decision makers responsible for Brazil’s foreign policy related to human-induced climate change, it discusses indications of distrust related to scientific knowledge underpinning international environmental negotiations, as evidenced especially on the part of less developed country leaders. The paper argues that the role of such inter-subjective factors in global environmental politics needs to be better understood, and relate this knowledge gap to broader tendencies in the field of international relations and beyond. The conclusion offers some thoughts about how to fill the gap.

Sustainability

Agri-environmental schemes have been introduced in numerous countries to combat biodiversity loss in agrarian landscapes that are important for both food production and biodiversity. The successful operation of such schemes depends strongly upon trust between actors involved, as well as trust in institutions that govern these schemes. However, the interplay between interpersonal and institutional trust in the context of collective action for agri-environmental management is not well understood. To address this question, we explore the case of agri-environmental management in the province of Drenthe (in The Netherlands), where a new policy model was implemented. This case shows how both institutional design and institutional performance critically influence trust dynamics. Under the old policy model, farmers struggled with auditing and control, which fostered mistrust and hampered collective action. Under the new model, a landscape approach, more responsibilities were delegated to fa...

International Journal of Environment and Health, 2008

The stakeholders are categorised into five groups: personally impacted, administratively impacted, generally concerned, process concerned and the remainder of the public. The assessment of stakeholders' trust in governmental decisions regarding environmental problems should be performed separately for each one of these five groups, using the Meyer's five-item (i.e. fairness, bias, data presentation, accuracy and trust) five-choice index. A high priority in the design of the risk communication programmes should be to address the concerns of the personally impacted stakeholders.

2014

The study aims to examine the role of uncertainty communication in increasing public trust in the capability of public authorities and industrial agencies to provide effective risk management. First, the study demonstrated the relationship between social trust and environmental concerns held by lay people in contaminated sites. Then, relationships between trust and lay understanding of uncertainties associated with technical risk assessment and potential health impacts caused by environmental contamination were examined. Data was collected through the distribution of questionnaires to 181 people who currently live in the area examined in the selected case study, i.e., the Maptaphut municipality in Thailand. The results showed that trust in public authorities and industrial agencies could slightly predict environmental and health concerns because people become more knowledgeable and rely less on institutions when judging risks. In addition, trust was influenced by lay understanding o...