Trust and monitoring in governance processes: lessons from landscape management by farmers in a Dutch municipality

An increasing number of scholars have recognized trust as an important factor in governance processes. However, theoretical and empirical analyses of process trust, or trust in the course and outcome of policy processes, are scarce. This paper builds a theoretical framework to further the understanding of process trust. Four elements of process trust are elaborated upon: (1) set-up of the process; (2) institutional trust; (3) organizational trust; (4) individual trust. The way that monitoring can help or hinder the formation of trust is explored. It is argued that monitoring enhances process trust provided that actors perceive monitoring as a collaborative effort. This argument is underpinned by the analysis of a governance process on landscape management in a Dutch municipality, where a local co-operative and the municipality agreed on the members of a monitoring team and the way of monitoring