The importance of trust and transparency in managing the COVID-19 pandemic. Evidence from sixteen EU member states

Abstract

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the European Union’s (EU) member states operationalized different methods to control the virus. By April 2022, the EU countries recorded considerably different COVID-19 related deaths. In this study, we investigate whether trust in government and in the medical staff, COVID-19 related transparency, and different mixes of these two, influenced the capacity of sixteen EU countries to manage the pandemic. To substantiate our inquiry, we utilize a modified version of the Trust-Transparency Matrix. Our study suggests that trust and transparency, in the context of the pandemic, operate as contextual variables of effective public management. The value of the trust-transparency framework is to elucidate general governance dynamics and to identify those that are the most pertinent in terms of the response to the pandemic.