How do you build back trust in government and politicians? Globally, the trust crisis is blamed for the rise of populism. In the UK, the new government has come into power with a blizzard of policy announcements and a focus on what Keir Starmer, the prime minister, calls “the fight for trust” – one that “defines our political era”.
Some insist that the key is delivery – following through on policies that improve people’s lives. Others counter with the example of the US, where Joe Biden’s solid delivery record failed to shift his political fortunes. Some believe revamping the rules on standards and ethics is the answer.
But there are countries that have bucked the global trend, ramping up trust to an amazing extent – and there is a lot we can learn from them.
In 2014, the Taiwanese government’s approval rating was less than 10%. Anything it suggested was automatically distrusted. Then, an uprising prompted a chain of events that would transform it into one of the most trusted democratic governments in the world.
On 18 March 2014, a coalition of students and civil society groups occupied the parliament, protesting against a proposed trade deal with Beijing that was being fast-tracked without scrutiny. The protesters included civic hackers using technology to promote transparency in government and experiment in digital democracy. During the weeks of the occupation, they demonstrated a different way of operating – through listening and building consensus, rather than directing and opposing.
After the protest something extraordinary happened. The government invited the protesters in – some became mentors to ministers, others were appointed as participation officers championing involvement in government departments, and a new team – the Public Digital Innovation Space – was established. One of the hackers, Audrey Tang, went from occupier to digital minister.
Over the following years, the government instituted new forms of digital democracy that engaged citizens to design the rules governing Airbnb and Uber, to crowdsource the pandemic response and, most recently, to design a crackdown on deepfakes on the internet.
The technology used is based on an open-source civic tech tool called Polis, which asks people to agree or disagree with statements and offer their own. Its unique algorithm maps the results not by what divides the population, but by the areas where people who might usually disagree find consensus. It flips the traditional polling method on its head. It’s a tool we at Demos have experimented with this year in partnership with the Cabinet Office in Whitehall and community groups in Grimsby, Lincolnshire.
Tang left government in May and is now on a global tour to promote a book she has co-authored, Plurality, documenting Taiwan’s experience. “To give no trust is to get no trust,” she told me last week. “When you radically trust citizens, citizens will trust you back.” When she left government, the administration’s approval ratings had reached highs of more than 70%.
What can other nations learn from Taiwan’s experience? Delivery matters: Taiwan is a well-run country. But you also have to rebuild the relationship between a state and its citizens. Trust goes both ways. In Taiwan, a tech-savvy nation with near universal high-spec broadband coverage, this meant radical digital democracy.
But the key ingredients can apply here: humble policymaking (meaning that policymakers start by acknowledging they don’t have all the answers), in-real-life methods to engage citizens, and a commitment to listening. In the British context, some of this is not even that radical. Councils have been experimenting with citizens’ assemblies to engage a disconnected and conflicted citizenry in the climate agenda, for instance.
Demos, along with the participation charity Involve, is publishing its proposals for how the British government could build back trust and overcome the daunting policy challenges of today. We recommend citizens’ panels to feed into the government’s new mission boards; citizens’ assemblies on a small number of big intractable policy questions (such as social care), or moral questions (assisted dying); community conversations; and co-creation for designing new public services.
Participation can help to engage citizens in solutions where difficult trade-offs are required. To take just one example, planning, the British government is promising to push through new developments that are likely to be unpopular at a local level, putting its MPs under pressure to rebel. It’s a car crash in the making. Creating ways for the public to participate in the design and implementation of these planning processes could help navigate this fraught landscape. Labour won a strong majority in the house, but with narrow margins in many constituencies. This means its MPs will be defending those delicate majorities from day one.
There are already some signs of progress. The government is setting up customer panels to scrutinise the water companies, and proposed reforms to the House of Lords come with a promise to “seek the input” of the public in the plans. What we’re proposing in the citizens’ white paper is an evolution in our policymaking processes to systematically involve citizens and create a more collaborative democracy.
The government has the opportunity to, like Taiwan, make a unique contribution to what others have called the “global playbook against populism”. But at the moment, its offering seems limited to a commitment to deliver on its promises and strengthening the rules of politics. Both are necessary, but it needs to go further and rebuild the political class’s relationship with citizens. To give trust is to get trust.
Polly Curtis is the chief executive of the cross-party thinktank Demos, a former Guardian journalist and author of Behind Closed Doors
