Trust the People? Populism, Trust, and Support for Direct Democracy

Nina Wiesehomeier and Saskia P. Ruth-Lovell
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Nina Wiesehomeier: School of Politics, Economics & Global Affairs, IE University, Spain
Saskia P. Ruth-Lovell: Department of Political Science, Radboud University, The Netherlands

Politics and Governance, 2024, vol. 12

Abstract: Populism is commonly understood as a response to frustrations with the functioning of modern democracy, while the use of direct democratic mechanisms has been hailed as a remedy for the ailing of representative democracies. Indeed, populism’s emphasis on direct citizen participation in decision-making is tightly linked to its distrust of representative institutions and the political elite as the cornerstone of mediated representation. Trust, however, matters for any functioning democratic institutional arrangement, and we contend that its role warrants more attention when considering the viability of alternative modes of decision-making such as referendums, particularly in the nexus of populism–democracy. Using original public opinion surveys implemented in Argentina, Germany, Italy, Portugal, and Spain, we distinguish among different objects of trust—elites, institutions, “the people,” or the society at large. We also explore citizens’ levels of trust in these objects and their association with institutional designs of direct democracy. Our results offer preliminary insights into the importance of horizontal and vertical trust relationships in shaping procedural preferences for different configurations of direct democracy.

Keywords: bottom‐up mechanisms; direct democracy; populism; top‐down mechanisms; trust (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cog:poango:v12:y:2024:a:8648

DOI: 10.17645/pag.8648

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