Why the public has lost faith in government and how it can be restored In 1964, over three-quarters of Americans trusted the federal government to do the right thing all or most of the time. By 1980, that number had plummeted to 26 percent, and Ronald Reagan won a sweeping victory for the presidency while proclaiming that government was not the solution to our problems but was itself the problem. Today, Americans' trust in public institutions is at near historic lows and "bureaucracy" and "big government" are pejorative terms. In Rebuilding Expertise, William D. Araiza investigates the sources of this phenomenon and explains how we might rebuild trust in our public institutions. Written in accessible and engaging language, the author examines the history of this deterioration of trust and reveals how politicians from Clinton to Trump have allowed that deterioration to continue, and, in some cases, actively encouraged it. Using an interdisciplinary approach, with insights from history, political science, law, and public administration, Araiza explores our current bureaucratic malaise and presents a roadmap to finding our way out of it, toward a regime marked by effective, expert regulation that remains democratically accountable and politically legitimate. A timely and indispensable read, Rebuilding Expertise makes clear what steps must be taken to regain public trust in our government.
William D. Araiza is Professor of Law and Dean of Brooklyn Law School and the author of Enforcing the Equal Protection Clause (NYU, 2016), Animus: A Brief Introduction to Bias in the Law (NYU, 2017), and Rebuilding Expertise: Creating Effective and Trustworthy Regulation in an Age of Doubt (forthcoming, 2022).
Rebuilding Expertise synthesizes decades worth of history, policy, and law to illustrate how weakening faith in government has been going on for decades and is not simply a Trump phenomenon. Timely, accessible, and thoroughly engaging; this book is a must read. -- Wendy E. Wagner, Richard Dale Endowed Chair in Law, the University of Texas at Austin Rebuilding Expertise offers a terrific exploration of the federal government, and is a must-read for laypersons and scholars alike. It is remarkably sweeping, providing colorful and keen insight into how the government has functioned under several presidents from Reagan through Trump. Araiza's detailed exposition illustrates clearly that the increasing interest in deregulation from politicians and the American public alike stems from a fundamental lack of trust in the government. Moreover, the book's central contention that this trust, and the government itself, can be rehabilitated by reinvigorating administrative expertise, is a meaningful response to the problems of competence and polarization faced by the US today. Ultimately, Araiza's prescription-that the bureaucracy be accorded expansive power and wide berth-is controversial, but may very well be the key to improving both the effectiveness and legitimacy of the administrative state. I highly recommend this book! -- Bijal Shah, Visiting Professor of Law, UC Berkeley School of Law, and Associate Professor of Law, Arizona State University, Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law Araiza does a masterful job at making the complex and interwoven causes of the decline in public trust accessible and engaging. Rebuilding Expertise is essential reading for those invested in understanding the many complex forces that have led us to this current moment in history. -- Sidney Shapiro, Frank U. Fletcher Chair in Administrative Law, Wake Forest University
