Budget decisions today are often made in an environment of high conflict and low trust. This is not surprising given that conflict is up, and trust is down in the United States, generally. The share of people who think that most other people can be trusted has declined in the U.S. by about one-quarter over the past few decades. This has real consequences. Seven in ten Americans think low trust between fellow citizens makes it harder to solve problems. The good news is that there is a desire to repair this problem. Six in ten Americans think it is “very important” that the level of confidence people have in their fellow citizens be improved.

Learn how to navigate a crowded decision-making environment with quadratic voting and how the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County did it.

• Publication date: November 2022