Building Trust in Government through Digitalization

Excessive bureaucracy and non-efficient public administration are factors that can decrease the quality of democracy. The example of this could be observed for instance in the USA during the registration for election, and then voting itself. In order to avoid this problem, digitalization of the government and public administration could be implemented, replacing the standard bureaucracy, and leading to higher effectiveness. Efficient public administration through digitalization gives people easier access to voting, to effective healthcare or education, prepares for digital change in the workplace due to high digital literacy, or provides means for crisis management. This may be specifically relevant in the current age, where there are emerging new threats to security, for instance the pandemics. In this way, it is possible to argue that there is a link between digitalization, efficient public administration, and thus higher quality of democracy. However, besides the benefits of digital democracy, digitalisation offers several threats of having all of your information online, and possibility of personal or public cyber attacks. For this reason, it would be beneficial to have a significant trust in government and institutions to manage all information transferred to the digital world in a secure way, and to protect citizens against the misuse or manipulation of information not only from the government side, but also from outside-the-government threats of hackers. This correlation can be observed for example in countries like Finland or Denmark which are considered to be digital societies while also having a high trust in institutions. Consequently, it proposes the question of relation between digitalization and trust in government or institutions which is necessary for a healthy and improving democracy. Simultaneously, it questions whether trust in institutions is necessary for the digital democracy to function, or whether it is the opposite, the digital democracy causes the trust in institutions.

To establish the relationship between digital democracy and trust in institutions, it would be essential to examine the example of Estonia, which is the world leader in e-governance. Based on the claim that democracy is dependent on trust in government, this proposes a question of whether digitalization could improve the quality of democracy by improving specifically the trust in government. Taking an example of Estonia, the trust in the government should be high since Estonia has one of the best digital societies. This is however not the truth. Even though the trust in institutions has improved and it is higher than the European average, the trust in government in Estonia is still only around 40-50% which is not as high as, for example, Scandinavian countries. But on the other hand, the trust in the system of digital society as an underlying structure is over 80%, which makes digital democracy possible and very effective (Markus, 2020). As a result, the case of Estonia proposes a hypothesis that digitalization could improve democracy by replacing trust in government by trust in the system, and thus make cooperation between citizens and government effective and efficient, even with low trust between these two actors.

Methodology

To properly examine the hypothesis, it is necessary to examine the situation in Estonia, which proposes the use of a case study method. The case study method refers to the “study of a single unit for the purpose of understanding a larger class of (similar) units” (Gerring, 2004, p. 26). Consequently, the major contribution of case study is theory-establishment as a result of application to a larger set of similar units, which is applicable to the case study of Estonia as well (Lijphart, 1971). In this way, the case study of Estonia can be used as a basis for larger study. Moreover, focusing on hypothesis-generating case study which is supposed to create a foundation for a theory that can be later generalized and used for other larger numbers of cases (Lijphart, 1971) may lessen the limitations of the study, which consist of the fact that any larger generalization may not be possible due to examining only one specific case, thus the case study may not be as scientific since the major aspect of science lies in generalization (Lijphart, 1971). However, according to Gerring (2004), case studies always employ more than one case, thus even though the theory of this case study is built on one single case, it can be used to apply to other cases within or outside the unit after the hypothesis and conclusions are established. This type of case study presupposes that there is no established theory prior to the specific case, in this case Estonia, that can explain the phenomena or give an explanation to the research question. Therefore, it is impossible to consider this case as confirming and refuting some theory or even being a deviant case which differs from other cases as there is no sufficient theory established. Still, since case study of Estonia focuses on one specific unit, it is limited to factors and variables that are applied only to Estonia, thus to establish a more general theory that can be applicable to a larger number of cases, some variables have to be disregarded since they are possibly true only for the Estonia. In other words, variables that are considered vital in this case study may be proven as irrelevant or unimportant during the process of applying the conclusions from this case study to other cases in the generalization of the theory. Nevertheless, hypothesis-generating case study is a crucial step in the establishment of a valid theory that can be generated from this specific case study.

Historical background

To examine the question of institutional strength of democratic state and consequent influences on current behaviour of people related to trust in government or even participation rate as vital part of democracy that could be simultaneously the most affected by digitalization, it is necessary to explain how the democratic state evolved historically to the modern state, and how this transition influenced its current structures. There are several theories based on which it is possible to describe the transition to the modern state of Estonia. One of the theories is presented by Barrington Moore (1966), who connects development of democracy with one of the three ways of modernization with modernization being the process that leads either to democracy, or to fascist or communist dictatorship. These routes are characterized by relation between elites with monarchy, elites and peasant class, and presence of stimulus for commercial agriculture or market capitalism. Adding to that, Charles Tilly (1985) also explains creation of the modern state, but with focus on external influences such as warmaking and consequent statemaking for the purpose of protection due to external violence. Both of these theories can be partially used to explain the establishment and development of Estonia, however, Estonia offers a unique route to modern state, which does not completely follow the theories. In this sense, following Moore´s concept, Estonia modernization route is mixing features of peasant revolution and bourgeois revolution routes, and thus creating a new model with characteristics of both routes. This means that characteristics of both routes have perhaps influenced the legacy of the social structure on Estonia's political culture, which leads to the question of whether Estonia´s precondition for democracy would be sufficient enough if not for Soviet Union interference. But even though the preconditions for democracy might have been strong enough, the foreign interference seems to play a major role in the development of Estonia as a modern state. This foreign interference, according to Tilly´s concept, could result in warmaking and thus statemaking, but Estonia, despite several movements for independence, was able to gain independence after the fall of the Soviet Union as a foreign influence, thus the warmaking did not lead to creation of sovereign state, but the state was established after the foreign influence diminished.

Despite the fact that Estonia did end up in communist dictatorship and did not experience bourgeois revolution, it is possible to witness the preconditions for bourgeois revolution in the case of Estonia, which could lead to establishment of democracy if it was not for Soviet Union interference. This would thus mean that these democratic preconditions could have had an impact on the political culture of Estnonians explaining rising economic growth and success of digitalization. According to Moore's (1966) theory, market or commerce stimulus, which leads to commercial agriculture, and later capitalist tendencies, are one of the major factors behind the bourgeois revolution that led to democracy. Even though Estonia did not experience a bourgeois revolution, and subsequent establishment of democracy, it is possible to observe commercial stimulus among the Estonian peasants and possibility of emergence of bourgeoisie class. After the peasants gained their right to move freely in 1863 and right to be independent from master´s supervision, the Estonian middle class began developing as a result of a boom in the market in agriculture, textile, or alcohol-distilling (Darski, 2007). During the period of Swedish and then Russian rule over Estonia, the literary spread, which resulted in 96% of Estonians being literate, which even further stimulated economic growth and prosperity (Eurydice, 2017). Consequently, peasant wealth was increasing, even to the point where they were able to buy land from landowners or the elite. Based on Moore's theory, this should be a strong emerging bourgeois class that would later overthrow the elites and establish democracy. However, this did not happen. The reason behind this occurrence may be the fact that the economic crisis came which affected the peasants the most,and consequently led to collapse of the whole national movement and democratic tendencies of peasant or potential bourgeois class (Darski, 2007). This shows that even though there may have been conditions ideal for bourgeoisie revolution and democracy, the other factors were strong enough to change the conditions of the peasant class. On the other hand, these conditions may have been activated when Estonians pushed for democracy in order to get independence and autonomy, and Estonia used the chaos in Russia after the First World War and the Bolshevist Revolution, and declared independence. This focus on pursuit of autonomy was caused by new parties emerging - specifically liberal and communist parties (Darski, 2007). The parties´ attempt for autonomy and democracy was successful for a short period of time with creation and passing of democratic constitution, and other democratic institutions, while also various reforms started taking place with standard of living improving until Estonia was once again invaded by the Soviet Union after 1939 (Eurydice, 2017). Moreover, the democratic constitution gave too much power to the parliament, possibly as a form of another elite rather than people's representation, which caused the government to be unstable, and eventually collapse (Darski, 2007). This then might illustrate a possible strong bourgeois class establishing democracy and abolishing power or foreign elite but due to present circumstances ending up back in peasant class with no democracy and eventually communist dictatorship. This would then prove that Estonia had enough prerequisites for democracy, but because of being a small state not capable of fighting more powerful neighbours, it did turn to communist regime as a result of Soviet Union influence. Nevertheless, it also means that Estonians have specific characteristics of the bourgeois class who are open to commerce, market, and innovation.

Even though Estonia did experience interference from foreign countries and thus periods of warmaking, the violence did not lead to state making in a form of national sovereign state as would Tilly (1985) suggests, but to periods of occupation and sphere of influence and struggle for independence. Since foreign influence played a major role in Estonia statemaking, it means that the statemaking was rather focused on independence than waging war with foreign countries and consequently providing protection in a sense of ratchet state, which is a state that creates and simultaneously protects from the violence (Tilly, 1985). In the case of Estonia, the elite was eliminated early in the history by nations such as Sweden, Denmark, Germany, or Russia. Consequently, the elite in Estonia consisted of constantly changing foreign power. Moreover, the Russian tzar did form an alliance with german nobles at one point combining two major foreign powers together, but due to having different opinions on how german nobles should treat peasant class, the alliance between Russia and peasant class against german nobles was created, with peasants accepting russification in order to defeat german nobles (Aruja, 2021). Therefore, even though the Estonian peasant class did manage to abolish elites after its absorption by Russia, they accepted the new one in the form of Russian foreign power, which also prohibited the creation of an independent statemaking. Also, major and successful warmaking consisting only of Estonians was not possible on account of the Estonian population being too little and too weak compared to other foreign neighbouring powers such as Germany or Russia (later Soviet Union), which means that Estonia was repeatedly crushed by other countries. However, Estonia did gain independence for a short period of time, which could mean that the violence did indeed lead to statemaking, and actually creation of democratic and prosperous state. But on the account of being neighbours with stronger and bigger countries, the state of Estonia as an independent sovereign state was suppressed. This then proposes a question of whether the Tillian model could work if Estonia was larger and could actually engage in war making and state making, if their enemies were not too strong. In addition, during Soviet occupation after WW2, many Estonians were killed, and the Estonian population has become a minority in its own state due to migration of Russians (Eurydice, 2017). Still, there was continual effort of resistance, but again, the resistance group was too little to defeat the Soviet Union and establish a state with all structures and institutions within the state based on Tilly's model. Eventually, Estonia did defeat the Soviet Union and establish an independent state after the Sing revolution (Eurydice, 2017). However, this happened when the Soviet Union was already declining, and it is possible to argue that the power of the USSR was weak enough. Therefore, it is questionable whether the establishment of independent and modern Estonia was on account of violence producing state or on account of the fall of the Soviet Union, which naturally led to creation of new states backed by another major power - the United States. Indeed, Estonia soon joined NATO and the European Union, and embarked on digitalization and creating a unique model of independent governance with a strong form of protection in the form of blockchain.

Even though violence played a major role in Estonia’s history, the violence was focused on gaining independence, not having space for war making and state making based on the Tilllian model. It is possible to argue that independence was gained after years of national movement and economic growth which led to literacy and emergence of bourgeois class who rose against the oppression, and could lead to democracy, however, the foreign power was strong enough to surpass democracy and even the statemaking. However, the national movement was persistent, and eventually the Estonians defeated the Soviet Union, but this happened perhaps due to the Soviet Union being weak enough at that time already. Still, the national movement, and possibly past strong bourgeoisie urges led to establishment of modern democracy which is focused on growth and innovations. This focus could be possibly due to bourgeois tendencies, which affected the behaviour or characteristic of Estonians and their later development. Therefore, even though Estonia did struggle with establishing and withholding democracy, initially ending in communist dictatorship before gaining independence and becoming a modern democratic state, the democratic preconditions were present but were suppressed by strong foreign influence. Still, these preconditions could further influence the behaviour of the state and its population after gaining independence, leading to eventually establishing digital society and digital democracy.

Political culture

Since Estonia, a democratic modern country, had democratic tendencies tracing back to historical development, these democratic tendencies as well as historical development influenced the development of political culture, which is crucial in analyzing the impact of digitalization on democratic institutions such as trust and participation in Estonia, on account of political culture playing a significant role in influencing these institutions. In other words, to have a good, stable, functioning democracy and its institutions, it is essential to have adequate political culture. Thus, the state and quality of democracy in Estonia depends largely on Estonia´s political culture. Political culture consists of values and public attitudes towards politics and their role in the political system, with Almond and Verba (1963) defining political culture as distribution of attitudes in the direction of political objects in a society. In addition to this, Almond and Verba describe different types of political cultures such as participatory (high cognitive orientation towards the system, and high levels of participation from people who have also expectations from the system) subject (cognitive orientation towards the system and expectations from the system, however, the participation is low), or parochial (not cognitive but possibly affective orientation towards system without any expectations, and low level of participation), while arguing that the ideal political culture for democracy is a mix of all these cultures. In this way, they came up with a concept of civic culture, which is combining tradition with modernity, and is “pluralistic culture based on communication and persuasion, a culture of consensus and diversity, a culture that permitted change but moderated it” (Almond and Verba, 1963, p. 2). However, developing a civic culture may take a significant amount of time and for this reason, as Almond and Verba state, it may be challenging for new emerging countries to develop one in a short time period. This challenge applies also to Estonia, which is considered to be the new country established only in 1991. However, Estonia did manage to establish civic culture, but with several flaws. These flaws are reflected in the lack of trust or low participation, which Estonia is trying to resolve by digitalization. The problem of trust is also described by Robert Putnam (1993), who emphasizes the importance of cooperation in order to have social trust, and effective democracy and institutions. He links trust and cooperation to social capital, claiming that cooperation is easier in a country that has inherited stock of social capital, while defining social capital as “features of social organization, such as trust, norms, and networks that can improve the efficiency of society by facilitating coordinated actions” (p. 166). But similarly to Almond and Verba, Putnam also acknowledges that having social capital in roots is crucial, and if the civicness is not present in the roots, it is less likely to be present in the political culture of modern country. Yet, even though Estonia does have a low level of trust, the traces of social trust are in fact present in the roots of the political culture of Estonia. In this sense, Estonia developed a civic culture but with problems of participation and lack of trust in institutions. In order to solve these problems, Estonia implemented digitalization. But while digitalization failed to raise the participation rate, it did act as a stimulator for trust and cooperation.

Even though Estonia emerged as an independent state quite late, it did manage to develop civic culture which is ideal for democracy. As Almond and Verba (1963) describe civic culture, it is a mix of all political cultures resulting in civic culture with “active, yet passive; involved, yet not too involved; influential, yet deferential” citizens (Almond and Verba, 1963, p. 340), which can be seen even in the case of Estonia. Firstly, despite the fact that Estonia is struggling with low participation, the low participation may be addressing Almond and Verba´s gap between actual behaviour of people and their perception of their capabilities connected to their influence, or gap between a sense of obligation to act and actual acting, which is again part of the ideal condition of civic culture. To explain, Almond and Verba (1963) insist that for balanced democracy, it is beneficial if in civic culture citizens regardless of their activity or passivity have the notion that they have ability to act and would actually have an influence if they acted. In this sense, citizens have potential or reserve of influence even when they are not acting. Subsequently, having potential to act but not actually acting creates balance between the elite´s power and their responsiveness to people, which is healthy for democracy. This notion of influence in case of actually acting can possibly be seen in Estonia as well. Since the turnout is slightly above 60%, it means that almost half of the population is passive. However, they have become passive after achieving the goal - establishment of an independent Estonian state. The turnout before getting independence was almost 90%, and after getting independence it dropped to below 60% (Lauristin, Vihalemm, Tallo, 1997). Thus in times of crisis, the population was actively participating in politics. Secondly, citizens in Estonia have also evaluative orientations, mixing affective and cognitive orientations, which is also beneficial for democracy. As Almond and Verba (1963) suggests, in ideal democracy, people should be a combination of pragmatic and loyal or affective towards political objects, without one of these two prevailing or reaching extremes. In other words, it is necessary to have both affective and cognitive orientations balancing each other which would further create balance also in politics. The combination of these two orientations is evaluative orientation, which is a combination of standards and feelings. The creation of evaluative orientation may also be a historical process of state establishment, where firstly, the population is mostly affectively oriented due to lacking information necessary for development of rational perception of politics, and later, when they obtain enough knowledge, the population also develops a cognitive orientation. This happened in Estonia, which had initially affective orientation, positively oriented towards creation of Estonian government (allegiance), and negatively oriented towards Soviet Union (alienation). This affective orientation can be seen in The Singing Revolution, which overthrew the Soviet regime by mass singing of Estonian songs and brought independence to Estonia. During that period, political activity was concentrated in mass gatherings, boycotts, rallies, collections of signatures, guidance of charismatic leaders, and rituals, which are all connected to strong emotions (Lauristin, Vihalemm, Tallo, 1997). However, after the independent Estonia was established, and new parties that were elected to Estonian congress emerged, the politics was transformed to a more rational form. Connected to that, Lauristin, Vihalemm, and Tallo (1997) argue that political and economic elites in Estonia gained knowledge about rational politics faster than the average population, and transformed politics to rational cognitive activities. Consequently, it created an environment where people engaged in politics were influenced by their previous affective orientation, as well as influenced by the prevailing cognitive approach, which thus creates evaluative orientation combining these two approaches. However, simultaneously, since the rest of the population did not yet understand rational politics and political activities, their participation decreased significantly. From that point, political participation either remained relatively low or even decreased. This may be a partial reason for current low participation, which was transformed to civic culture, and which is Estonia trying to resolve by digitalization.

Participation is indeed declining in Estonia despite the use of digitalization. In fact, looking at the turnout in elections, the average turnout is 62.65%, with 63.67% turnout in 2019 parliamentary elections (Election Guide, 2021), meaning that participation is indeed quite low in Estonia. This might be due to Estonia lacking strong historical traditions or roots for political participation, as a result of being denied political and economic participation during Soviet occupation. Having said that, the presence of some historical traditions may be on the contrary the reason for the development of trust, which is neverthless also low in Estonia. To support that, according to OECD, in 2020, only 46.5% of Estonians reported that they trust in government, which is a rise from 2019, when the trust in government in Estonia was 40.3%. However, according to Bennich-Björkman (2007), because of the inter-war first Estonian republic, Estonia did in fact develop a civic culture based on communalism, individualism, cooperation, and trust that survived even the Soviet regime. Indeed, in comparison to other Baltic countries, Estonia does in fact have more developed participatory democracy, with participation mainly through civil societies than other Baltic countries (Saars, 2009). During this inter-war period, Estonia embarked on the notion of equality, social trust, practices of solidarity and cooperation but, as Bennich-Björkman argues, people were oriented more towards community, and the trust in political parties and political system was missing. This can be seen, based on the World Value Survey, in the percentage of Estonians seeing themselves as part of their local communities which is 75.8%. Connected to that, 72.1% of Estonians trust their neighbourhoods, and 91.1% trust people they know personally. But contrary to this, only 39% of Estonians reported that people in general can be trusted with 58.3% stating that they need to be careful in trusting others, and 75.6% not trusting people they meet for the first time. This is even further supporting that trust is perhaps present in communities on account of historical roots but is missing on a larger scale. Going back to trust in political parties and political systems, which was historically never present, this lack of trust may then have also survived, and thus may be the reason why the lack of trust in institutions is still very present in Estonia. To illustrate, even though 79.2% of Estonians do want democratic political system, 69.2% do not have confidence in political parties, only 52.8% have confidence in government, and 56.4% do not have confidence in parliament (data derived from World Value Survey, 2020). Therefore, even though Estonians do trust democratic system, they do not trust its institutions. In addition, according to Putnam (1993), it may be impossible to develop this trust in government if it is not present in the roots. Yet, he does suggest that changing formal institutions can change political practice. In other words, institutional changes are reflected in changing identities and values, so social capital is actually possible to build (Putnam, 1993). Consequently, it might be possible to use digitalization as a tool to build social capital, specifically trust. Digitalization could serve as “third party enforcement”, which Putnam describes as a neutral party used when “actors are unable to make credible commitments to one another they must forgo many opportunities for mutual gain - ruefully but rationally” (p. 193). This third party enforcement more typically represents the state who is enabling actors to trust each other in an environment where they cannot do so. However, when trust is lacking between people and state, the third party enforcement cannot be state, but some other alternative, which in case of Estonia might be digitalization. Indeed, around 80% of Estonians reported trust in the digital system, while 70% reported confidence in civil services, and on a scale of 1-10 with 10 marking agreement with the statement that technology is making their lives healthier, easier, and more comfortable, the most answers were concentrated between 8-10 (data derived from World Value Survey, 2020). Thus because there are no historical roots for trust between people and politics, digitalization could possibly serve as a tool to build this trust.

A well functioning democracy is linked to civic culture, which is connected to a mixture of all political cultures, and balance between orientations, as well as between activity and passivity of citizens with potential to act. However, the development of civic culture requires time, experience, and political socialization, which may be problematic in newly emerged countries which did not have enough time to develop it yet. The same applies to social trust which is part of social capital that also requires historical roots in order to be present in modern country. In the case of Estonia, even though it is a newly emerged independent democratic country, it did manage to develop civic culture and some version of social capital and trust but with several flaws. These flaws consist of low participation and lack of trust between citizens and government. In order to solve these flaws, Estonia is attempting to substitute the lack of time-wise experience by digitalization, which is supposed to build trust and promote participation, which are necessary for democracy. However, even with digitalization, the rate of participation is quite low. On the other hand, in case of trust between people and government, digitalization might act as effective third party enforcement, thus might be essential in raising the quality and effectiveness of democracy.

Building trust in government

Even though digitalization could have an impact on trust in government, firstly it is necessary to question how it is in fact possible to build trust in government where there is significant lack of it. This can be done through concepts of building trust based on creating fundamental aspects of trust in interaction between government and citizens by digitaliation, or taking an example from cooperation in a hostile environment, thus in an environment where there is lack of trust. This cooperation is linked to evolution of trust and presence of three major conditions that are necessary for emergence of trust. These conditions can be in fact also provided by digitalization, which means that digitalization can improve trust in government by being a tool for creating necessary characteristics or conditions for emergence and evolution of trust.

According to Eggers (2021), the trust could be created and sustained by implementing the fundamental attribute of trust which is keeping the promise all the time with competence and good intent. Specifically, the competence refering to ability to execute, and intent which is showcase of care for needs and wants of stakeholders, in this case citizens, are especially important in order to build trust. The implementation of competence and intent can be done, as Eggers claims, through humanity, transparency, capability, and reliability (2021), with humanity and transparency signaling intent, and capability and reliability competence. To further explain, Eggers argues firstly that humanity creates the perception that the government truly cares for the citizens, which can be done through quickly resolving issues, focusing on public goods and environment, or showing appreciation to public employees and officials. However, this aspect is not necessarily related to digitalization, thus digitalization could perhaps not improve trust in government by implementing humanity. But this is different with transparency. Eggers notes that transparency puts forward the idea that the government shares information and motives behind its action, while communicating them through straightforward and easy to understand language. This could have been seen in Estonia when cyber threats occur. All data about cyber attacks or threats are open to the public in Estonia, with Prime Minister Ratas even appearing on television explaining the 2017 attack related to the ID crisis (Stone, 2021). Furthermore, in digital societies, citizens can be very sensitive about their data and how they are handled. These concerns are also covered in Estonia with citizens having access to a list of government or private institutions that have looked at their private information (Stone, 2021). Therefore, digitalization effectively provides for transparently and thus building fundamentals for creation of trust in government. Moreover, as Eggers points out, capability demonstrates that government can establish high-performing and effective services, which is applicable to implementation of digitalization in Estonia which created electrical cabinet meeting, banking, paying of taxes, heath report documents and prescriptions, ID and digital signature, while also establishing online voting and AI strategy in order to pursue proactive government. This is also closely linked to reliability that is signaling, according to Eggers, that the government can be consistent and dependable in performance related to these high-quality and effective services. Therefore, based on the Eggers model of building trust in government, digitalization can provide for transparency, reliability, and capability, which are fundamental attributes of competence and good intent, which are main features of functioning democratic institutions, and consequently functioning and improving democracy.

Besides the Eggers theory of building trust in government, the evolution of trust as part of game theory can be applicable to Estonia´s example of building trust by digitalization. In other words, evolution of trust can be also used to illustrate how it is possible to build trust in government by digitalization despite the trust between government and citizens originally missing. In an evolution of trust, there are several crucial factors that are in fact allowing or providing for cooperation and simultaneously development of trust. These factors consist of low miscommunication, possible win-win situations, and repeated interaction with the possibility of existence of a shadow of the future. Connected to digitalization as a tool for building trust in government, digitalization actually allows for emergence of these factors in interactions between government and citizens, which means that because digitalization causes these factors to appear, it consequently causes the development of trust between government and citizens. Firstly, because of transparency and effective and open communication about cyber attacks, threats, and how the data are managed, due to digitalization, the possibility of miscommunication is decreasing, or to put it simply, is lower. Secondly, in Estonia, every attack or problem is addressed and solved by cooperation between public officials, private sector, and academics, which showcase a high level of cooperation and increasing possibility of win-win situation (e-Estonia, 2018). To add, according to Viik, when public and private sectors work together everyone wins (e-Estonia, 2018), which further shows that by digitalization, Estonia was able to create efficient cooperation by pursuing win-win situations, and as a result building trust. Thirdly, repeated interactions with the shadow of the future, which refers to actors not knowing when their last interaction will be, are fundamentally present in the relationship between citizens and states. Thus this condition for evolution of trust is automatically present in case of government and citizens. However, by focusing on repeated interactions, Estonia built trust in digital democracy as a new system, starting with rising the importance of email communication in 1994. The main goal was to make internet or digital communication as easy as possible in order to make all citizens engage in online communication. This resulted in people starting to trust digital communication, thus the digital system, upon which services were built (e-Estonia, 2018). So in this sense, digitalization can act as a provider of conditions for evolution of trust, thus is the builder of trust in government.

Not even does digitization impact trust in government, but it can actually create trust. This can be done by being an applicable and effective way of providing for emergence of major attributes of trust such as transparency, reliability, and capability which are part of showing competence and good intent, which are essential for emergence of trust. Moreover, digitalization creates an environment with possibility for win-win situations, low miscommunication, and repeated interactions which are beneficial for development and evolution of trust. Thus digitalization can in fact build trust in the government. However, looking back at previous statistics, the trust in government is still low around 40-50%. Yet the trust in the system as an underlying structure that the government uses is above 80%. This means that digitalization leads to building of trust in the system, which is used by the government, so citizens do trust that the government is effective, but not because of the government itself but because of the digital structure.

Conclusion

In the current age of fast technological development, it is necessary to examine whether these developments could be beneficial for the solving of numerous political issues connected to the state of democracy. In other words, it could be essential to analyze whether technological inventions could improve democracy. One of these inventions is digitalization which would be applied to government, creating digital government and digital society. By implementing digitization to government, the effectiveness of government can be increased and by this also trust in government can be improved. Moreover, digitalization can provide for the emergence of necessary conditions for development of trust, which means that digitaliation could be a key tool for building trust in government, which is necessary for a healthy and functioning democracy. This can be seen in Estonia, which is a country that suffers low trust in government, and is also one of the best digital societies in the world. Even though Estonia had democratic tendencies present from the historical development of the country to modern state, which then also influenced development of civic culture in a short time which is fundamental for a good state of democracy, the civic culture and social capital emerged with a flaw in a sense of low trust in government. In order to solve this problem, Estonia implemented large digitaliation a an effort to create an effective and efficient government and thus build trust. This process could be considered to be successful, however, the trust in government remained relatively low. On the other hand, trust in the digital system reaches above 80%, which means that digitaliation failed to build trust in the government itself but built trust in the system as an underlying structure used by goverment. In this sense, citizens perhaps do trust the government as long as it uses digital system, and since government is increasing usage of digital system, citizens do trust govenrment, which is beneficial for quality of democracy. Therefore, it could be possible to claim that digitalization replaced the traditional trust in government by a new form which is however effective and efficient, and consequently improves democracy.

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