Research

I study trust, regulation and democracy. I am mainly interested in ways that companies and governmental organizations can increase public trust while ensuring democratic values - the empowerment of citizens. I am an expert in measurement development, survey design and analysis, behavioral economics and public administration.

In my Ph.D, I developed original measures of transparency, accountability, participation and inclusiveness of regulatory agencies that allowed, for the first time, to quantitively assess and compare the extent to which public bodies are democratic. This work was acknowledged and awarded several times, and the measures were used to construct the first database with data on 49 regulatory bodies from 9 countries and 3 sectors (Food Safety, Data Protection and Finance) through the TiGRE project. The data covers the legal obligations for and the actual levels of transparency, participation, accountability and inclusiveness. I am now analyzing the database and working on 2 articles that will validate the measures and explore the data.

I am also researching public trust. I have designed, conducted and analyzed several experimental surveys in different countries to learn about citizens' trust in companies and governmental bodies. I have published a study about the role of regulation in cultivating trust in Fintech companies, and another one about the role of transparency, inclusiveness, accountability and participation in increasing trust. Now I am working on a paper about policy framing and trust in the context of the EU commission.

Publications:

Peer-reviewed articles:

  • Maman, Libby. (2022). The Democratic Qualities of Regulatory Agencies. Policy & Politics. 50(4), 461-482 . link

  • Maman, Libby, Feldman, Yuval and Levi-Faur, David. (2022) Varieties of Regulatory Regimes and their Effect on Citizens' Trust in Firms. Journal of European Public Policy. DOI: 10.1080/13501763.2022.2134439

  • Maman, Libby, The Effects of Democratic Qualities of Regulatory Agencies on Citizen Trust in Regulators and in Regulated Companies. Regulation

Working Papers:

  • Ciornei, Irina and Maman, Libby. Does Framing the EU as Trustworthy Increase Trust in the EU? An Experimental Survey.

  • Maman, Libby, Jordana, Jacint, Levi-Faur, David, Guaschino, Edoardo, Van-Zimmeren, Esther and Schomaker, Rahel. Can We Rely on Rules for Learning on the Democratic Qualities of Regulatory Agencies: Conclusions from a Novel Database.

  • Koen Verhoest, Dominika Latusek, Frederique Six, Jan Wynen, Libby Maman, Jarle Trondal, YannisPapadopoulos, Rahel Schomaker. How do trust and distrust relate in public governance settings? Testing the conceptual link in regulatory relations.

  • Maman, Libby, and Jordana, Jacint. Regulation by the People: Exploring the Democratic Aptitude of Regulatory Agencies.


Published Books and Reports:

  • Maman, Libby, Jordana, Jordana, Pérez-Duran, Ixchel, Triviño, Juan Carlos & Gómez-Díaz, Jana (2021). Database on the formal design of agencies at the EU, national and subnational levels. TiGRE Project.

  • Jordana, Jacint, Maman, Libby, Pérez-Duran, Ixchel, Triviño, Juan Carlos & Gómez-Díaz, Jana (2021). Report on the Impact of Formal Design of Policy Regimes for Improving Trust in Regulation. TiGRE Project.

  • Maman, Libby, Feldman, Yuval and Levi-Faur, David (2021). Can Enhanced Self-Regulation Deliver Trust? Assessment via two experimental surveys. The Israeli Democracy Institute. (in Hebrew).

  • Maman, Libby, Bjorn Kleizen, Moritz Kappler, David Levi-Faur (2020). A meta-analysis of empirical trust studies and data sources. (H2020-SC6-GOVERNANCE-01-2019: Trust in Governance and Regulation in Europe consortium (TiGRE), grant agreement nr 870722.). DOI 10.17605/OSF.IO/FAUMB

  • Levi-Faur, David, Libby Maman, et al. (2020). A report on trust in government, politics, policy and regulatory governance. (H2020-SC6-GOVERNANCE-01-2019: Trust in Governance and Regulation in Europe consortium (TiGRE), grant agreement nr 870722.). European Commission. Available here.


MA Thesis:

  • Maman, Libby (2012). Does Anybody Hear Me? A Typology of the Perceptions of Public Opinion and Democratic Responsiveness within the Members of the Knesset. (Available online at HUJI Library and here).