We adopt an attitude of benevolence and sympathy towards that person. This kind of trust can be generated between two people who look each other in the eyes, take each other seriously and treat each other decently. The defendant believes that the judge is impartial; the motorist sees the policeman as a serious representative of authority on the streets. Personal trust is subjective, whereas confidence in democracy and the rule of law is more objective in nature. The complexity of many government services is such that citizens cannot immediately ascertain their entitlements under the system. This means that they cannot judge their trustworthiness by what they eventually receive. In practice, therefore, people seem to base their judgements on the personal treatment they receive. This can inspire such a sense of trust that the citizen feels confident that the outcome will be correct.(15 ) If a person complaining to the Employee Insurance Agency (UWV) feels that the complaint is handled properly (i.e. in a friendly, cooperative, prompt and comprehensible manner), he or she will be far more likely to accept the agency’s decision on it. Trusting the official handling the complaint breeds confidence in the correctness of the agency’s decisions and, ultimately, in the agency itself. Errors and failures to behave in a proper manner strain that confidence. While it is, of course, important to design systems to be as efficient and reliable as possible, winning the trust of individual citizens calls for something more, especially where less highly educated members of the public are concerned. To them, the government machine can all too easily seem incomprehensible and impenetrable. This is a serious matter, because understanding what is happening to us is a fundamental human need. It is vital, therefore, that government officials should succeed in building a good and trusting relationship with these citizens. Although politicians, administrators and officials are just people like anyone else, they have an unfortunate tendency to display ‘system behaviour’. That is, they allow their actions to be dictated by formal powers, budgets and procedures. They both control and embody government bureaucracy. In doing so, they often fail to recognise the needs of many people. It is essential that individual politicians, administrators and officials should build meaningful relationships with citizens – relationships that inspire a more personal sense of trust. There is an important interaction between confidence and trust. Where confidence is lacking or is being lost, government representatives can help to restore it via the personal trust they inspire. The opposite can also be the case. When a system is failing and the people responsible are unable to inspire a sense of personal trust in themselves and their ability to manage the situation, public confidence rapidly declines. This is what seems to have happened in the case of the financial crisis.(16 ) Trust trust model | 9 Pagina 8
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