Why are policy actors so distrustful of each other, and how? Cognitive, behavioral, and endogenous relational sources of perceived distrust in governance networks

Abstract In the age of collaboration and shared governance, paradoxically, distrust manifests frequently in government and political institutions and is seen as dysfunctional to democracy, making governing networks challenging. Yet, previous studies emphasize the significance of promoting trust more than addressing distrust in networks. Distrust differs from the absence of trust. It involves relationships characterized by doubt, suspicion, or opportunism. Relatively little is known about why distrusting relationships occur and how they develop in adversarial interorganizational governance networks. Using quantitative network surveys and qualitative interview data from organizations involved in an adversarial local hydraulic fracturing governance network in New York, our mixed-method analyses fill this gap. We found evidence of cognitive distrust from different policy beliefs and identity-based subgroups and two sources of behavioral distrust (competition and non-collaboration), as well as the interactions between cognitive and behavioral sources of distrusting relationships. We further identified underexplored sources of endogenous relational distrust: strong and negative reciprocity, non-transitivity, and Simmelian ties (meaning mutual third-party ties). These relational sources suggest that the distrust networks mutually reinforce each other but are less clustered and more indirect. Our study advances network management scholarship by showing why distrusting relationships occur and how they escalate within adversarial networks.