Public Trust & Citizen Participation in the Municipality of Rotterdam
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Public Trust & Citizen Participation in the Municipality of Rotterdam: Natural Gas-free in 2050? Laura Melkert 538031 Governance & Management in the Public Sector Erasmus University Supervisor: Asya Pisarevskaya Second Reader: Darren McCauley 26-06-20 Word Count: 19.336 PREFACE Before you lies the thesis “Public Trust & Citizen Participation in the Municipality of Rotterdam: Natural Gas-free in 2050?” It has been written to fulfill the graduation requirements of the master program Governance & Management in the Public Sector at Erasmus University. During the period of February to June, 2020, I was engaged in working on this thesis. Together with my internship supervisor at the municipality of Rotterdam, Alexander van Steenderen, the research question was formulated. The thesis came with its challenges. Fortunately, the help of both my internship supervisor and my university supervisor, Asya Pisarevskaya, allowed me to answer the identified question. They were always available and willing to assist me along the way. Therefore, I would like to thank them for their guidance and support. I want to thank all of the respondents as well. I would not have been able to conduct this research without them. I also wish to thank my friends and family, who were always willing to hear out my ideas, struggles, and progress. I hope you enjoy your reading. Laura Melkert Zierikzee, June 26, 2020 2 ABSTRACT The municipality of Rotterdam aims at being natural gas-free in 2050 in, among others, the built environment sector. As there is a general agreement among scholars that sustainability transitions cannot be addressed sufficiently through only top-down decision-making, citizen participation is crucial (Ju, Liu & Feng, 2019). In addition, the closer citizens are to their government, the higher the level of public trust often is (Moon, 2003). This public trust influences the acceptability of changes in energy policies (Steg et al., 2015). The relation between public trust and citizen participation is, however, not clear among scholars. There are two strains of thoughts on this. One is that more trust leads to more participation whereas the other believes less trust leads to more participation. This study, therefore, has identified the following research question: How does trust in the municipality of Rotterdam influence citizen participation in the energy transition? A multiple regression, carried out by SPSS Statistics version 26, was run using 397 filled out surveys by residents of Rotterdam to examine whether citizen participation can be predicted based on public trust (⍺ = .766), and the auxiliary variables education, income per capita, age, gender and dwelling. Citizen participation has been divided into three subsets: (1, ⍺ = .722) the willingness to implement certain measures in their house (2, ⍺ = .863) the willingness to join particular participation mechanisms, and (3, ⍺ = .538) the citizens’ role and influence in decision-making. Weighted descriptive statistics are provided for all three subsets, whereas unweighted inferential statistics are presented for the first two subsets. It was found that more public trust leads to more citizen participation in the municipality of Rotterdam. In addition, higher educated residents and residents with a high income are predicted to participate more. Furthermore, contrary to what existing literature describes, this research concludes that younger (< 35) residents have more public trust than older (56+) residents and that voters for the party in power do not necessarily have to have a higher level of public trust than voters for other parties. Based on these results, it was recommended to improve the public trust among the residents of Rotterdam to stimulate citizen participation. This could be done by focusing on districts or on themes (e.g. political affiliation). Furthermore, the enabling and facilitating role of the municipality could be explored more. Conclusively, in order to be natural gas-free in 2050, a healthy relationship between the municipality and its residents should exist. 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLES & FIGURES .................................................................................................................................... 5 1. INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................... 6 2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK .......................................................................................................... 8 2.1. CITIZEN PARTICIPATION ..................................................................................................................... 8 2.2. PUBLIC TRUST ..................................................................................................................................... 13 2.2.1. TRUST BETWEEN THE GOVERNMENT AND THE GOVERNED ....................................... 15 2.2.2. MORE PUBLIC TRUST LEADS TO MORE PARTICIPATION ............................................... 15 2.2.3. LESS PUBLIC TRUST LEADS TO MORE PARTICIPATION ................................................ 16 3. METHODOLODY ................................................................................................................................ 17 3.1. CASE STUDY: THE MUNICIPALITY OF ROTTERDAM .......................................................... 17 3.2. DATA COLLECTION ...................................................................................................................... 21 3.3. WEIGHTING .................................................................................................................................... 26 3.3.1. WEIGHTING IN THIS RESEARCH ..................................................................................... 27 3.4. METHODS OF DATA ANALYSIS ................................................................................................. 30 3.4.1. CITIZEN PARTICIPATION ................................................................................................... 30 3.4.2. PUBLIC TRUST ..................................................................................................................... 31 3.4.3. STEPS IN SPSS .................................................................................................................... 32 3.5. LIMITATIONS .................................................................................................................................. 33 4. ANALYSIS .......................................................................................................................................... 34 4.1. RELIABILITY ANALYSES .............................................................................................................. 34 4.2. DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS CITIZEN PARTICIPATION ......................................................... 36 4.2.1. SUBSET 1: WILLINGNESS TO IMPLEMENT MEASURES ........................................... 36 4.2.2. SUBSET 2: WILLINGNESS TO JOIN PARTICIPATION MECHANISMS ..................... 41 4.2.3. SUBSET 3: CITIZEN’S ROLE AND INFLUENCE IN DECISION-MAKING .................. 45 4.3. DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS PUBLIC TRUST ........................................................................... 49 4.4. DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS ....................................................... 54 4.5. REGRESSION ANALYSES ........................................................................................................... 57 5. CONCLUSION & DISCUSSION ........................................................................................................ 70 6. REFERENCES .................................................................................................................................... 73 APPENDIX 1 | SURVEY ............................................................................................................................. 81 4 TABLES & FIGURES TABLE 1. THE LADDER OF GOVERNMENT PARTICIPATION AND CORRESPONDING ROLES .................... 11 TABLE 2. THE ANES TRUST IN GOVERNMENT SCALE.................................................................................... 14 TABLE 3. FACEBOOK GROUPS .......................................................................................................................... 22 TABLE 4. REPRESENTATIVENESS OF COLLECTED DATA COMPARED TO CENSUS .................................. 24 TABLE 5. INPUT IN RAKE WEIGHTS IN SPSS ................................................................................................... 28 TABLE 6. WEIGHTED VERSUS UNWEIGHTED PERCENTAGES AND FREQUENCY OF SOCIO- DEMOGRAPHIC VARIABLES ..................................................................................................................... 29 TABLE 7. RELIABILITY OF SUBSET 1: IMPLEMENTATION OF SPECIFIC MEASURES ................................. 34 TABLE 8. RELIABILITY OF SUBSET 2: THE WILLINGNESS OF RESIDENTS TO JOIN PARTICULAR PARTICIPATION MECHANISMS ................................................................................................................ 35 TABLE 9. RELIABILITY OF SUBSET 3: CITIZEN’S ROLE AND THEIR INFLUENCE IN THE DECISION-MAKING ..................................................................................................................................................................... 35 TABLE 10. RELIABILITY OF PUBLIC TRUST ...................................................................................................... 35 TABLE 11. OUTCOME