Abstract
Existing literature often views citizens’ perception of government trustworthiness as an outcome of coproduction. In contrast, we argue that trustworthiness is a precondition for coproduction in “two-ways”, as it both motivates citizens to engage and encourages officials to incorporate citizen input. To examine this argument, we conducted paired survey experiments with U.S. citizens and municipal officials, presenting a scenario in a hypothetical city randomly assigned government trustworthiness information. Participants reported their willingness to coproduce in disaster resilience planning and their expectations of the other side’s willingness. Results indicate that government trustworthiness increases citizens’ willingness to coproduce, and citizens’ expectations of officials’ behavior explain 74 percent of this effect. In contrast, officials maintain high levels of support for coproduction regardless of whether the public trusts them. We further discuss the misperceptions between citizens and officials and ways to encourage greater collaborative engagement from both sides. Overall, our “two‑way” approach offers scholars with new opportunities to explore the interdependent relationship between citizens and government in coproduction.
Figure 5: Mediation effects of the other side’s expected behaviors
