Rethinking political distrust

Abstract

Increasing political distrust has become a commonplace observational remark across many established democracies, and it is often used to explain current political phenomena. In contrast to most scholarship that focuses solely on the concept of trust and leaves distrust untheorized, this article makes a contribution by analysing political distrust. It argues that citizen distrust of government and political institutions poses a threat for democratic politics and clarifies the relationship between the distrust observed in established democracies and classical ‘liberal distrust’, which is considered beneficial for democracy. Further, it addresses the relationship between trust and distrust, identifying a series of functional asymmetries between the two concepts, with important implications for theoretical and empirical work in political science. The article suggests that a conceptualization of political distrust based on evaluations of incompetence, unethical conduct and incongruent interests can provide a fruitful ground for future research that aims to understand the causes, consequences, and potential remedies for political distrust.

Political distrust and the spread of COVID-19 in Nigeria

“…Governments can hardly govern effectively when large parts of the citizenry distrust them. Political distrust contributes to limiting citizens' compliance to government rules and cutting ties with political agents and processes (Bertsou, 2019). However, there are other factors that affect citizens' compliance to government rules and their cutting ties with political agents and processes.…”

“…They include education, personal well-being, social status, dislike of politics and ideological positioning (Norris, 2011). The major drivers of political distrust are poor quality of governance, technical incompetence, poor economy performance, manipulation of reports in government-owned media, mutual suspicions, lack of basic needs, political corruption and general exclusion (Bertsou, 2019;Carlisle, 2020;Clark, 2016;Iroghama, 2012;Khan, 2016;Kress et al, 2016;Rafaty, 2018). Lee and Lee (2018) also noted that incongruent ecological worldview could promote political distrust.…”

Corruption Perceptions, Political Distrust, and the Weakening of Political Islam in Iraq

“…Political distrust refers to a relational attitude that reflects the perception of distrust of a political system as a whole or its components (Bertsou, 2019). In this study, political distrust is the lack of trust in political institutions that was measured via 4 items on a 4-point Likert scale.…”

Political Distrust and its Discontents: Exploring the Meaning, Expression and Significance of Political Distrust

“…Many democracies have witnessed growing challenges to their political processes, with citizens becoming increasingly weary and distrustful of their politicians, turning their backs to established political parties and candidates or even taking to the streets to actively protest against policies and political institutions. Given the current political climate and the uninterrupted trend of deteriorating signs of system support, there is strong reason to believe that attitudes of distrust merit closer analysis [4,19]. The theoretical importance of political trust for the effective governance and legitimacy of democratic regimes has been highlighted by numerous scholars [3,5,20,21] and empirical studies have shown political trust is a key component of diffuse support for democratic systems [10,22,23].…”

“…Since then, the debate rages on. Is distrust an ominous sign for democratic stability, simply an expression of dissatisfaction towards underperforming incumbents or an inevitable by-product of rising citizen expectations [3,4]? From the rich academic literature that has ensued, we know that political trust represents "a reservoir of good-will" that helps maintain support for overall democratic achievements in times of crises and that widespread political distrust can pose a fundamental challenge for the effective operation of government [5,6].…”