Exploring the role of administrational trust and distrust in the Flemish public administration

Our objective in this paper is to explore the roles played by interorganisational trust and distrust in the empirical reality of Flemish public administration on the basis of interviews with senior civil servants in the Flemish administration. We construct a conceptual framework and use it to structure qualitative interviews according to four distinct narratives regarding the roles of administrational trust and distrust. Our conclusion is that both administrational trust and distrust have functional and dysfunctional aspects because both can be considered to lead to positive and negative consequences, both are used in different ways in interactions, and both exist under different contexts. Interorganisational trust and distrust can be functional under some circumstances, but are bound to have dysfunctional side effects if either is used as a panacea in public administration. Public managers should therefore focus on maximising the potential of both administrational trust and distrust to play a functional role, rather than focus on maximising administrational trust as such.status: publishe