Achieving low-carbon, green and sustainable development is a hot topic of global concern. Governments around the world have introduced different policy tools to promote the achievement of this goal. This paper focuses on the policy design of traffic carbon emission reduction in China, analyzes the various policy tool combinations introduced by governments at all levels since 2010 and the various participating entities involved, and constructs the policy feedback mechanism of traffic carbon emission reduction policy. Meanwhile, in the complex mechanism of policy feedback, public policy can influence citizen participation and action by shaping citizens' cognition, thereby achieving the policy goal of low-carbon travel. This paper uses language models and regression models to analyze the results of citizen participation in traffic carbon emission reduction policy discussions in different regions of China from 2010 to 2023, confirming the shaping effect of traffic carbon emission reduction policy on citizen cognition, and the different impact mechanisms and effects of different types of policy tools on citizen cognition and behavior. In addition, citizen participation and action will also have a positive or negative impact on the formulation and adjustment of traffic carbon emission reduction policies in their respective regions in the next stage. Based on the empirical research results, this paper provides suggestions and reflections on the selection of effective carbon emission reduction policy tools in the future.

Environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) face many obstacles in their efforts to preserve local green space against pro-growth policies. As Press (2001) notes, “despite their reputation as effective obstructionists, environmentalists lose far more frequently than they win, especially when it comes to land use conflicts (p. 1).” Nonetheless, there are indeed cases in which ENGOs and local grassroots organizations prevailed in local land use conflicts. What explains why some of them succeed and some fail? In this study, we develop a framework that helps us explain the efficacy of NGO strategies in protecting local green space against development pressure by drawing on key concepts derived from sociological institutionalism. Specifically, we analyze ENGO strategies in terms of their resistance against external institutional pressure, arguing that the efficacy of their resistance strategies depends on their ability to address key external legitimacy issues. In addition, our framework captures another emerging theme in the social science literature on collaborative governance that focuses on how goal congruence between ENGOs and local civic organizations affects their efficacy in achieving collective objectives (Jung, Mazmanian, and Tang 2009).

We illustrate our framework by two cases of civic resistance against land use policies in sub-urban communities in Korea. Both cases involved local grassroots organizations and ENGOs working together to resist developmental efforts that would destroy local open green space. The two cases provide a useful contrast because the coalitions in both cases employed apparently similar resistance methods in response to similar institutional pressures in similar physical settings, but their actions resulted in different outcomes. The divergent outcomes can be attributed to differences in external legitimacy and internal goal congruence that the two community actions achieved in the course of resistance against development pressures.

While trust tends to be acknowledged as an important foundation for co-creation, empirically based research on how existing levels of trust condition attempts to co-create and sustain or develop trust as an outcome of such processes, is limited (Holmen, Røhnebæk, and Langergaard 2021; Holmen, Røhnebæk, and Fuglsang 2021W. H. Voorberg, Bekkers, and Tummers 2015; E. H. Klijn, Edelenbos, and Bram 2010; T. Bentzen 2020). Even less is known about the role of institutional trust as a foundation for co-creation processes. While interactional forms of trust rely on face-to-face micro-processes, institutional-based trust is tied to formal societal structures which generalize beyond a given transaction, and beyond specific sets of exchange partners, through i.e. traditions, rules, professions or regulations (Bachmann and Inkpen 2011; Sønderskov and Dinesen 2016; Zucker 1987). General theories of trust would suggest that, high levels of institutional trust would increase chances of co-creation and the further growth of trust (Luhmann 2017; Svendsen and Svendsen 2016; Sønderskov and Dinesen 2016; Hernandez 2007). However, our empirical knowledge of how contexts of low versus high institutional trust will affect chances of successful co-creation – and the likelihood of increasing trust further, is sparse. Therefor this study sets out to explore:

1)how does existing levels of institutional trust condition public sector actors attempts to co-create innovative solutions with citizens, and 2) how does public sector actors experience the development of interactional trust as an outcome of co-creation processes?

The study relies on research design with five most different case-studies of co-creation processes, selected on maximal variation regarding existing levels of institutional trust (5 municipalities in five different European countries). Based on qualitative studies drawing on interviews, observations, and self-reporting notes from the EU project BiodiverCities, we explore how public sector actors in five, different institutional trust contexts, attempt to realize ambitions of co-creation and how co-creation processes affect trust-developments within the group of co-creating actors.

Contrary to expectations, the results show that public sector actors within a high institutional trust setting, struggle more with attempts to engage citizens in co-creation processes, than actors in a context with low institutional trust. Similarly trust as an outcome of co-creation processes develops oppositely than would be expected from general trust theory: Co-creation processes anchored in contexts of high institutional trust did not led to more interactional trust, while interactional trust clearly increases in the wake of co-creation processes in medium or low institutional trust contexts. We discuss these somewhat surprising results in order to provide explanations for why institutional trust does not necessarily boost co-creation (Lounsbury 2023).

The study contributes with much needed knowledge about institutional trust as a foundation for co-creation, which may guide practioners in their endeavors to design and facilitate co-creation processes with citizens and other actors outside the public sector organization. The finding also contributes with a deeper understanding of the interplay between trust as a foundation for and trust as an outcome of co-creation processes.