Beyond Universal Cooperation: Domain‐Specific Mechanisms of Citizen Compliance Across Taxation, Health, and Environmental Regulation
2026-05-06
This study challenges the assumption that cooperation mechanisms are uniform across policy domains by examining how trust and social norms influence personal commitment to cooperate (PCC) in taxation, public health, and environmental protection. Using data from 15 countries, we identify systematic differences that question universal regulatory designs. A key finding is a domain‐specific “substitution effect”: high institutional trust correlates with higher PCC in taxation but paradoxically lower PCC in public health. This suggests that in high‐trust countries, citizens may delegate health responsibility to authorities, reducing their own sense of obligation, a pattern not significant in environmental protection. These results indicate that high trust can undermine personal initiative in domains where the state is perceived as the primary provider. Consequently, effective governance requires domain‐specific strategies. For challenges like pandemics, which require both state coordination and individual action, relying solely on institutional trust may backfire. We propose a new framework for understanding these distinct motivational dynamics, demonstrating that uniform governance strategies fail to account for the complexities of citizen agency across different regulatory contexts.