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Governance Mechanisms Post-Crisis

The Return of Trust? Institutions and the Public after the Icelandic Financial Crisis

ISBN: 978-1-78743-348-9, eISBN: 978-1-78743-347-2

Publication date: 20 August 2018

Abstract

This chapter examines the formal governance mechanisms put in place by various authorities within Iceland after the crash. In contrast to one of our earlier papers (Bryant, Sigurjónsson, & Mixa, 2014), we find that, no matter how well the mechanisms work, formal mechanisms are insufficient to restore trust. To that end, we examine the trust literature from political science that suggests that trust is a lubricant of the social system that consequently causes individuals to open themselves up to vulnerability. When trust is broken in a society with a high-existing degree of trust, such as Iceland, the loss of trust is significant and leads even apparently minor incidents to be perceived as betrayals. We examine the various processes put in place by both the government and other institutions and show how they mostly worked in concert. Nonetheless, we find that the processes by themselves have been insufficient to restore society’s trust in the affected institutions.

Keywords

Citation

Bryant, M., Sigurjonsson, T.O. and Mixa, M.W. (2018), "Governance Mechanisms Post-Crisis", Sigurjonsson, T.O., Schwarzkopf, D.L. and Bryant, M. (Ed.) The Return of Trust? Institutions and the Public after the Icelandic Financial Crisis, Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 245-262. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-78743-347-220181018

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

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