Trust and Reputation of the European Commission

This dissertation investigates trust and reputation in the light of the European Commission, which is very distinct from conventionally studied bureaucratic agencies in public administration, because it is a multi-purpose bureaucracy embedded in a complex multi-level system. It argues that in the realms of reputation research, which predominantly focuses on single-purpose agencies, the Commission stands out. Through the increasing number of policy domains it has started to work in over time, it continuously has been creating higher salience of the actions it performs and has become subject to more monitoring by ordinary citizens. This augmented level of politicisation is the most exacerbated difference between the Commission and other bureaucratic agencies and gives reason to distinguish reputation in this context from conventionally studied agencies. In the course of three chapters the dissertation investigates the meaning of reputation for this multi-purpose public administration using mixed methods. First, it introduces a theoretical framework, which emphasises the difference between trust and reputation as close but yet distinct concepts, which are competing mechanisms creating legitimacy. Second, lays down the rationale for using mixed methods and third, it tests the hypotheses emanating from the theoretical framework. The three chapters create a story-like narrative of the Commission, its reputation and public legitimacy, which should be read and analysed in combination. Particularly the fine but significant difference between trust and reputation marks the core argument of this dissertation. It shows that reputation can be explained as a belief about a public agency, which is generated by multiple audiences through an evaluation based on performance. Trust on the other hand can be described as an evaluation based on normative expectations by ordinary citizens and is tightly linked to values and deep core beliefs. While lobbies and interest groups can typically observe performance of such complex agencies and thus create reputation, citizens normally compare institutions to their normative expectations and thus create trust (or distrust). From that follows that reputation and trust in combination can then be called two competing mechanisms, which create legitimacy of public agencies. While multi-purpose agencies like the Commission operate in many policy domains and thus are more scrutinised by the public, they should rely more on trust and ordinary citizens’ perceptions. On the other hand single-purpose agencies, which operate in few policy domains and are thus less observed by the general population, should rely more on performance-based evaluations by interest groups. The theoretical framework argues that legitimacy based on trust is more important for the Commission, because it needs compliance by ordinary citizens and not only by affected audiences such as big business or interest groups.