ESRA 2023 sessions by theme

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Session Details

This session raises several core questions related to trust in political institutions and aims to advance our knowledge of how to gauge and evaluate political trust. The session starts by focusing on the definition and key components of political trust. Indeed, despite the vast number of studies on political trust, the notion is still regarded as ambiguous, thus making it difficult to define and investigate. More longitudinal and cross-sectional research is therefore required to examine the validity and robustness of measures of trust, not only in different cultural contexts but also over time. Following that, the session seeks to clarify what the general public expects from and understands about the fundamental elements of political trust. In particular, it looks at how the general public feels about transparency policies, which are put in place in response to a general decline in public confidence in political institutions across the world. Comparative research demonstrates both cross-country and within-country variations that scholars and policymakers should consider in order to increase and maintain higher levels of trust in political institutions. This session further discusses the effects of particular factors on political trust and does so for different subgroups of the population that exhibit significant differences in terms of, among others, social capital, socioeconomic status, societal views and expectations, as well as levels of political interest. The papers presented in this session pay particular attention to the effects of media consumption and experiences of discrimination on trust in political institutions. Overall, the session also emphasizes the effect of contextual factors, such as crisis situations (e.g., the COVID-19 pandemic and economic indicators) and political systems, on citizens’ assessments of policy performance and, consequently, trust in political institutions.