Trust in courts and judicial systems: a conceptual and methodological review

Monika Glavina and Esther van Zimmeren

Chapter 11 in Handbook on Trust in Public Governance, 2025, pp 167-188 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Citizens’ trust in courts is an underexplored topic, which is often examined under different concepts such as confidence, public support, or legitimacy. Who the trustee in this trust relationship is – judges, courts, or judicial systems – is also often unclear. In order to bring structure to the literature and optimise the use of the concept of trust in courts in empirical studies, this chapter offers a meta-analysis of studies and data sources on citizens’ trust in courts. The chapter provides a critical analysis of the key concepts used in the trust in courts literature and their operationalisation in surveys and academic papers. It further compares surveys and data sources based on their operationalisation of trust, trust subjects, question formulation, and answer categories. The chapter concludes by proposing ways to optimise the use of trust concepts and measures in surveys in future research on citizens’ trust in courts.

Keywords: Trust; Courts; Judicial systems; Judicial actors (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
ISBN: 9781802201390
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