Trust in political and legislative actors and systems

Viktor Valgarðsson

Chapter 10 in Handbook on Trust in Public Governance, 2025, pp 153-166 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Concerns about a ‘crisis of democracy’ have grown in recent times, and many believe that this crisis has its roots in citizens’ declining political trust. These concerns raise some fundamental questions: what do we mean by political trust? Is trust all of a piece? Why do we think it is important? This chapter offers a review of the literature on trust in political and legislative actors and systems, guided by these fundamental questions. I argue that trust in representative institutions and actors should be distinguished from trust in other state institutions and that political trust primarily refers to the belief that the former would do good; a belief that is shaped both by features of the trustor and the trustee. This belief appears to be related to many important social and political outcomes, but robust causal evidence about the causes and consequences of political trust remains scarce.

Keywords: Political trust; Political support; Mistrust; Distrust; Crisis of democracy; Institutional trust (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
ISBN: 9781802201390
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