School of Public Administration at UCF’s Center for Public and Nonprofit Management Director Dr. Thomas A. Bryer and Dr. XiaoHu Wang are quoted and noted, respectively, in the Governing magazine article on trust in government. How do you suggest increasing citizen trust in government? Is it possible? A worthy objective? The right objective?
In Government We Don’t Trust
Published by Prof. dr. Thomas Bryer
Dr. Thomas Bryer is professor in the School of Public Administration at the University of Central Florida, Fulbright Scholar and Specialist, Professor at Kaunas University of Technology (Lithuania) and Visiting Professor Edge Hill University (United Kingdom). View more posts
Thomas Andrew Bryer 
Historically, trust has been abused by the trustees. As such, I’m not sure that trust is, in and of itself, a good aim for public officials. After all, confidence men first want to develop trust, and then pounce.
I’d rather that the citizens watched the government with a bit of skepticism, and the government maintained transparency so that the public can see that the nothing is currently going on. Leave the lines of communication open, and be willing and able to deal with the tough questions from the public.
I found an interesting quote in the lead article in the Winter 2011 Public Budgeting & Finance (Reforms for Improved Efficiency in Public Budgeting and Finance: Improvements, Disappointments, and Work-in-Progress by John L. Mikesell and Daniel R. Mullins). They listed the four aims of governmental budgeting, and the most recent addition to the list was “provide transparent information about programs and finances to the public.” If the public trusted the government, then they wouldn’t need to know what we’re spending money on, or what we doing.
Trust us, we’re from the government.