Regulation and (dis)trust: Exploring a complex relationship

• Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies

Bringing together scholars from distinct disciplines in polities ranging from European countries and the European Union through North America and Australia to the Global South and China this workshop aims at exploring the complex relationship between regulation and (dis)trust.

Today, distrust appears integral to the governance of our societies, often in close association with the multiple crises that have repeatedly shocked us. Regulation has followed, with both substantive reforms and novel institutional architectures. Yet, distrust can vary in strength across polities and policies, as well as over time. We should not take (dis)trust for granted, but rather, assess it empirically. Equally, we should not assume that distrust has always positively affected regulation, as the conventional view – seeing trust and regulation as alternatives – suggests. Nor should we rule out the possibility that the operation of regulation might feed back into trust, restoring it after a previous breach. But while today it is undeniable that the allegedly pervasive distrust that might fuel regulation is at the heart of the wider politics of governance, we know little about whether, how and why (dis)trust and regulation affect one another.

The event is by invitation only.