Conference Agenda

The state and its organizations have grown more complex in recent decades. Because this may pose both administrative and democratic challenges, we need to advance our understanding of the conditions influencing the complexities in modern organizations. Therefore, in this paper, we study policy complexity in relation to dimensions of publicness in public organizations. Specifically, we focus on one type of organization, namely state-owned enterprises (SOEs), and one type of policy, namely privacy policies. Both of these constitute important elements in modern governance and economies. Our general expectation is that the closer an organization is to the market – indicating a lower degree of publicness – the more complex its policies will be. However, our findings reveal a complicated picture regarding complexity in these organizations: both business-like SOEs and larger state ownership shares are associated with higher levels of policy complexity. We discuss the implications of these findings for modern governance.

Scholars have long asked about the role of news media in affecting citizen trust in state institutions. Going beyond studies that treat the content of media reporting as a black box, we assume that there are three distinct mechanisms: First, we posit that media exposure, meaning the extent to which newspapers report on political and administrative institutions and the degree to which individuals consume this news, matters. Second, we argue that exposure has a combined effect with the tone in which institutions are covered. Finally, we expect a difference in news media reporting between political, administrative and coercive institutions. Using data from a representative multi-wave panel study of 7,323 individuals, we link respondents’ news media consumption to their trust in political institutions. To measure news exposure and tone, we analyzed 1,780,422 newspaper paragraphs from five major German national newspapers using a novel large language model capable of classifying reporting on administrations and politics as positive, negative, or neutral. Our findings suggest that mere exposure to news media has only a short-term positive effect on citizens’ trust levels. However, the tone of reporting plays a critical role, whereby the strength and direction of the effect vary considerably depending on the institution being reported on. While reporting on politica parties does not appear to influence individuals’ trust levels, reporting on security actors, local administrations, and governing parties does show measurable effects. This suggests that institutional trust is not shaped by media exposure alone, but rather by how frequently and in what tone institutions are portrayed.

Trust in regulation and in the actors that define, implement, enforce and judge the regulation - what we call the regulatory regime - is crucial. Regulatees’ rule compliance depends on their level of trust and so does the uptake of services by beneficiaries, which is often put to the test due to high-impact events.

This paper lays the foundation to study how trust in three key dimensions—regulatory actors, regulatory content, and enforcement procedures—influences overall trust in regulatory regimes. Trust in regulatory regimes is critical for addressing contemporary challenges such as financial stability, data protection, and food safety, all of which require effective governance frameworks. Drawing on a cross- country, cross-sector survey conducted across nine countries and three regulatory domains (data protection, finance, and food safety), two critical questions are aimed to be explored: (1) How does trust in individual components of a regulatory regime contribute to overall regime trust? and (2) Do these effects vary across stakeholder groups, such as regulatees and public actors?

The paper develops a theoretical framework that conceptualizes trust as a mul3faceted construct and situates it within the broader context of regulatory regimes. Preliminary hypotheses are formulated to guide future empirical analysis, focusing on the poten3al hierarchical influence of trust components and variations across stakeholder groups. The study highlights the relevance of trust in shaping perceptions of legitimacy and the effectiveness of regulatory regimes, while emphasizing the importance of tailoring regulatory approaches to the distinct priorities of diverse stakeholders. By advancing these theoretical and empirical foundations, this paper aims to contribute to a deeper understanding of trust dynamics in governance systems, offering practical implications for policy design, stakeholder engagement, and the fostering of resilient regulatory regimes.