Do Government Trust Communities?
The Trust Flows Project

This project explored the issue of when, how, and why trust flows operate between governments and communities in joint efforts to tackle significant social harms, such as violent extremism or natural disasters, through partnerships and cooperation. A central concept in this project is that trust is a key part of a well-functioning democratic, socially cohesive and resilient society. The flow of trust has implications for where power resides in, for instance, political decision-making, economic frameworks, urban planning, the provision of services.  The project will explore the questions:

•  when designing policies and projects, to what extent do governments display trust in the communities which will directly affected by the decisions; and:

• is lack of trust by governments in communities a reason why there has been little real co-production of policy and programs necessary to enable the development of empowered communities and more resilient and inclusive societies?

The concept of ‘trust flows’ is intended to highlight the nature of trust as a mode of dynamic, relational and interactive social capital, one that is both mobile and mobilised through social relationships and environments, rather than a fixed quality, feature or attribute of individual or collective dispositions. Trust can flow both vertically, such as between governments and institutions and communities and individuals, and horizontally, both within and between communities and individuals. These relationships are also connected to sources of power and the impact of hierarchy.

While the contemporary deficit of trust by communities in government and institutions and trust by people in each other has been well surveyed and documented, the issue of the level of trust by government and institutions in communities has not been the subject of significant inquiry.