Politics and Trust

Handbook on Political Trust

2014

The literature points out that political trust can have a major impact on democratic politics by affecting political participation, institutional effectiveness and policy choices. Given the significance of political trust for the functioning of democracy, it is important know how the way citizens relate with political actors and institutions changes in times of extraordinary shock. Using Greece as a case and data from successive rounds of the European Social Survey, this article shows that, during times of major distress, the way schools and hospitals are run – the “social” performance of government – has an important effect on political trust. This effect is stronger during the economic crisis than during normal conditions, as more citizens turn to the state for protection but are disappointed by administrative inefficiency and malfunction. The evidence suggests that international creditors must pay more systematic attention to the administrative effectiveness of social welfare institutions rather than solely focus on economic performance.

2020

The initial phase of the corona crisis has led to a significant improvement in the levels of confidence that Germans have in their state and government. More than two-thirds of all people in Germany currently regard the state as being “rather strong” or “very strong.” This means that the level of trust has risen by 23 percentage points since the end of 2019. At the same time, less than a quarter (23%) still think the state is “rather weak” or “very weak.” That is only about half as many people as at the end of 2019. In addition, more than twice as many people (49%) compared to last year, consider our government to be “strong enough,” and only half as many currently view the political system and political stability as weaknesses. Satisfaction with the government has also reached a high level as compared to other countries. Thus, the initial phase of combating the pandemic has led to a massive return of trust in the state’s and the government’s ability to act. The current trust levels...

International Journal of Public Opinion Research, 2006

The European People‘s Party. Successes and Future Challenges. , 2010

In international surveys of various professions using the trust index,29 politicians and – since the start of the economic crisis – managers of international concerns, regularly land in the last two places. These results should be a warning signal for politics. Democracies, parties and states can only function over the long term if the citizens have faith in the politicians they elect. That is the reason why, for a long time, there has been an intense debate in political science, political marketing and politics itself about how trust in the institutions as well as politics, can be increased.

Competing theoretical claims exist in the literature on the effect of proportionality on political trust. To date, empirical studies yielded mixed results. In this paper, we examine a curvilinear effect of the proportionality of election outcomes on political trust using data from the European Social Survey (2006–2009). The findings show that political trust is indeed highest in countries with very proportional as well as in countries with very disproportional election outcomes and lowest in countries that fall in between. Election outcomes that are more fully inclusive and those that provide more accountability can both lead to higher levels of political trust. Next to the proportionality of the translation of votes into seats, this study investigates a broad range of election outcomes that are associated with (dis)proportionality i.e. the effect of the number of parties in elections, parliament and government, voting for the winning or losing party under different levels of proportionality and the clarity of responsibility.

Acta Politica, 2007

Political Studies, 2019

Political trust has become a central focus of political analysis and public lament. Political theorists and philosophers typically think of interpersonal trust in politics as a fragile but valuable resource for a flourishing or stable democratic polity. This article examines what conception of trust is needed in order to play this role. It unpicks two candidate answers, a moral and a responsiveness conception, the latter of which has been central to recent political theory in this area. It goes on to outline a third, commitment conception and to set out how a focus on commitments and their fulfilment provides a better account of trust for political purposes. Adopting this conception discloses how trust relies on a contestable public normative space and has significant implications for how we should approach three cognate topics, namely, judgments of trust, the place of distrust, and the relationship of interpersonal to institutional trust and distrust. The importance, fragility and dangers of trust and distrust have become increasingly central topics for political analysis and normative reflection, as well as for anguished political brooding. These themes dominate the extensive literature on how and 'why we hate politics', on the wide-scale erosion of public trust and confidence in government, and on the rise of anxieties about populism and its cultivated dialectic of distrust (of normal politics, parliaments, the system) and trust (of the leader, the movement) (e.g.,