Paper/Speech Details of Conference Program for the 30th NISPAcee Annual Conference Program Overview Panel: COVID-19 and Organisational Changes in Public Adminis Author(s) Bianca Radu Babes-Bolyai University Cluj-Napoca Romania Title Trust in public institutions during coronavirus pandemic. A comparative perspective among EU member states File Paper files are available only for conference participants, please login first. Presenter Bianca Radu Abstract The paper aims to explore the importance of trust in times of crises, its multiple facets, and how multiple institutional actors played important roles toward building trust in government. It is well documented that trust in public institutions facilitates citizens’ compliance with restrictive measures, and therefore it is an important resource in times of crisis. The article aims to analyze how trust is being built during coronavirus crisis in EU member states. For example, at the beginning of the pandemic, trust in public institutions referred mainly to those institutions that had responsibilities to manage the crisis. However, as the pandemic evolved, trust was based not only on the performance of public institutions and the reputation of the decision makers, but also based on the comparison with the performance of other countries in containing the coronavirus. In addition, trust in public institutions was dynamic over time. In the first part of the pandemic, several studies in different EU countries showed a “rally-round-the-flag” effect, which consisted in an increase of government support in the immediate aftermath of the implementation of lockdown measures. The magnitude and longevity of the effect depended from country to country, but one possible cause of the effect is that citizens tried to compensate the uncertainty by increasing trust in institutions responsible with crisis management. As the coronavirus crisis unfolded and vaccination became very important to contain the spread of the virus, the success of vaccination campaign depended not only on citizens’ trust in the public health institutions, but also on the safety and efficacy of the vaccine, the vaccine development, the governmental approval process, pharmaceutical companies, etc. Several studies explored trust, among other factors that influenced the success of vaccination campaign in different EU countries. The research methodology is based on biographical analysis of research published on the topic of trust in public institutions in EU member states during coronavirus pandemic, and on the analysis of statistical data already collected on trust (such as Eurobarometer).
