The Impact of Representation on Support for Democracy and Political Trust

Abstract

Political trust is regarded as a systemic resource contributing to an efficient performance of governmental functions. According to many scholars two main sources of political trust exist, first the belief that the governing and the governed share the same values and norms and therefore establish a relationship of mutual trust, and second the conviction that the governing will conduct public affairs in a way responsive and accountable to the interest and demands of the public and can be trusted for that reason. In democracies, where citizens exercise control over government through representative institutions, it is trust which gives representatives the leeway to postpone short term constituency concerns while pursuing longer term national interests (Mishler and Rose, 1997). The citizens’ feeling of being well represented in the political system is an important source of political trust. According to Sztompka (1999) a distinction should be observed in that between trust in the democratic system as a whole and trust in its (representative) institutions or political elites. Consolidated democracies share an important advantage that their citizens may invest their trust in individuals representing them and/or the rules of the representative institutions these individuals are elected to, suggesting the key importance of the reinforcement of (trust in) representative institutions in emerging democracies in order to increase systemic political trust. The panel will explore whether attitudes towards political representation matter for political trust and support for (representative) democracy and which specific dimensions of attitudes towards representation are particularly important in this respect. Comparative papers are welcome as are reports on particular countries. Attention shall also be paid to methods of measuring public trust such as public opinion surveys, and their credibility, efficiency and impact onto politicians’ decisions and attitudes.

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