Misplaced Distrust

Citizens of industrialized countries largely share a sense thatnational and international governance is inadequate, believing not onlythat public authorities are incapable of making the right policydecisions, but also that the entire network of state and civil societyactors responsible for the discussion, negotiation, and implementationof policy choices is untrustworthy. Using agro-environmental policydevelopment in France, the United States, and Canada as case studies,Éric Montpetit sets out to investigate the validity of this distrustthrough careful attention to the performance of the relevant policynetworks. He concludes that distrust in policy networks is, for themost part, misplaced because high levels of performance by policynetworks are more common than many political analysts and citizensexpect.