THE OPEN PUBLIC DEBATE AND THE IMPACTS UPON TRUST FORMATION

Abstract

This paper investigates the impacts of public open debates on a public project by the third committee upon the trust formation around the project decisions. The roles of the open debates are: 1) providing information on the project to the citizens, 2) forming the citizen's trust for the decision processes by the government. The truster-trustee relationship between the government and the individual surrounding the public debates is modeled by an interlinked communications game. The mechanisms that the open debates in the committee may fail by game externality are analyzed. Finally, the communication policy in the committee is investigated to control the communication externality caused by the openness of the public debates.