Decision making on mega stables: Understanding and preventing citizens’ distrust

•The arguments used to build trust for mega stables resulted in distrust.•Gaining trust for mega stables needs more than public gatherings or research.•Mega stables are more beneficial from the national than from the local perspective.•Trust starts with analyzing configurations, reflection, and critical outsiders.

The expansion of intensive livestock farming, especially the construction of mega stables, is highly contested in the Netherlands. In this context, local authorities try to make decisions about situating mega stables on their territory by balancing out various interests. However, many become entangled in escalating processes and lose the trust of both citizens and farmers. On the basis of an evaluation of a decision-making process about a mega stable project in a small Dutch town, this article analyzes why distrust occurs and what local authorities could do to prevent this. In-depth interviews and participant observations show how different configurations of stakeholders became fixed in their own convictions, values, and fears, resulting in mutual annoyances, misunderstandings, blaming, and, finally, distrust. The more information public officials provided to dispel doubts about the mega stables, the more citizens started to distrust the local government. Trust is not enhanced by more information and transparency alone. The paper concludes that, once a decision-making process escalates and distrust arises, it is very difficult to revitalize the process and regain trust. The paper offers suggestions on governance actions that could help prevent spirals of distrust