The politicization of political trust? Supply- and demand-side explanations

Political trust appears to be increasingly politicized at the elite level. This is potentially problematic for democratic stability, because when political competition is no longer only about substantive policy decisions, but rather increasingly about the political institutions and system itself, agreement on democracy as ‘the only game in town’ is no longer self-evident. In this paper we assess to what extent politicization of political trust is also occurring at the individual level of citizens. Is political trust rooted in ideological positions among citizens? Given the apparent politicization of political trust at the elite level, it is surprising that few studies have yet examined the correlation between political trust and the main ideological dimensions in public opinion. Political trust is commonly conceptualized as an evaluation of performance, both in terms of procedures (e.g. low levels of corruption) and policy output (e.g. a strong economy). This focus overlooks the potentially politicized nature of political trust judgments. We expect ideological positions to drive citizens’ political trust for two reasons: first, as political challenger parties (from both the left and right) mobilize distrust against the establishment, political trust is likely to become more integrated into the main dimensions of political competition (top-down, supply-side explanation). Second, the increasing salience of the socio-cultural dimension has increased the representation gap between some citizens and their potential representatives, leading to more distrust among citizens with socio-culturally right-wing issue attitudes (bottom-up, demand-side explanation). We combine comparative longitudinal survey data from the Eurobarometer (EB, 1973-2022) and European Social Survey (ESS, 2002-2020) for a threefold analysis. First, we analyze how political trust relates to left-right placement over a 50-year timespan to demonstrate to what extent increasing politicization occurs in European democracies (EB). Second, we unpack this relationship by looking at correlations between political trust and specific socio-economic and socio-cultural issue positions (ESS). Third, we assess to what extent party supply side characteristics can explain cross-national and over-time differences in these correlations, by looking at the conditioning effects of the presence and size of Radical Left and Radical Right challenger parties who mobilize their supporters on political distrust. Our analyses have implications for how we conceptualize political trust; if political trust is (increasingly) connected to political positions, this calls into question the dominant approach to trust as an evaluation of performance. Furthermore, the politicization of political trust has implications for electoral competition and thereby for party system change. Finally, our study allows us to further investigate the role of elite cues in politicizing trust in politics. Thus, we aim to contribute to a new line of research into political trust as a politicized judgment.