Misplaced Distrust

Book excerpt: Citizens of industrialized countries largely share a sense that their national governance is inadequate, believing not only that governments are incapable of making the right policy decisions, but also that the entire network of state and civil society actors responsible for the discussion, negotiation and implementation of policy choices is untrustworthy. Using agro-environmental policy development in France, the United States, and Canada as a case study, Eric Montpetit sets out to investigate the validity of citizens' mistrust through careful attention to the policy-making performance of the relevant policy networks. He concludes that distrust in policy networks is, for the most part, misplaced because high levels of performance by policy networks are more common than citizens appear to expect. Moreover, his analysis reveals that policy networks providing for a participation in governance to powerful interest groups and strong government bureaucracies are more likely to succeed in producing sound environmental policies for agriculture. A timely and crucial contribution to the good governance debate, this book should be required reading for policy-makers and politicians, as well as students and scholars of public policy, political science, environmental studies, and government.