‘System Destroys Trust?’—Regulatory Institutions and Public Perceptions of Food Risks in Taiwan

Abstract

Trust, Public perception, Risk governance, Global food risk, Delayed-hidden risk culture, Authoritarian policy-making,

Trust in regulatory regimes: scoping the field

“…The empirical research focusing on citizen trust in specific regulators or a regulatory regime (relation 3) relies on various methods of data collection, such as interviews, document analyses, focus groups or surveys. Some studies focus on citizen trust in regulators or regulatory regimes in general (Brabers et al, 2013;Walls et al, 2004), while other studies focus on citizen trust in regulators or regulatory regimes after an incident (Chou, 2008;Chou & Liou, 2010) and still others focus on citizen trust for regulating new risks (Brown & Kuzma, 2013;Farrell, 2012;Harmon et al, 2013;Satterfield et al, 2013;Sylvester et al, 2009) or risks more generally (Pollak, 1996). They identify factors that influence the degree of trust citizens have in regulators or regulatory regimes.…”

“…The impact of incidents, such as dioxins found in food, on citizen trust in regulators and regulatory regimes is studied by Chou in two studies (Chou, 2008;Chou & Liou, 2010). In both cases governments used technical performance information to address citizen concerns after an incident (e.g., when dioxins were found in food), but this did not help citizens to trust the technology or organizations.…”

The public perception of climate change in Taiwan and its paradigm shift

“…Therefore, scientific and technical experts treat the public's risk perception as emotional and irrational. Although this treatment is supported by a number of studies on international society (Wynne, 1980(Wynne, , 2001, long-term structural hiding, and neglect or release of risk control, substantially decrease the public's confidence in government governance, resulting in a system that destroys trust (Chou and Liou, 2009). …”

Knowing about your food from the farm to the table: Using information systems that reduce information asymmetry and health risks in retail contexts

“…These systems not only support customers' decision making; they also motivate sellers to charge fair prices for their products, thereby resulting in customer purchases with high satisfaction [26]. For this reason, the packaged food and grocery industry is adopting a variety of ISs for use by consumers in the retail context [50]. Examples of such ISs include Product Search Systems, which provide customers with information about grocery products' location and stock, and food traceability systems (FTSs), which provide customers with information about the production region, producer, timing, and other details of the production and distribution process.…”