Public Service Evaluations, and Political Trust, Mistrust, and Distrust

Political trust, mistrust, and distrust represent distinct yet interconnected attitudes towards political institutions. Importantly, malperformance of public services is often considered as a cause of political distrust. At the same time, citizens are sensitive towards the fairness in the delivery public service processes, especially when dissatisfied with service outcomes. Consequently, procedural fairness is assumed to mitigate the spread of political distrust. However, empirical evidence for this claim remains limited, with most studies focusing on trust rather than distrust or mistrust, thereby conflating these different attitudes. This study explores whether citizens’ experiences with public services—focusing on both process quality (throughput) and outcomes (output)—influence political trust, mistrust, and distrust differently. This study addresses these gaps by employing novel measurements of political trust, mistrust, and distrust across two studies conducted in eight European countries: one cross-sectional and one experimental. The cross-sectional study examines citizens' experiences with public services, assessing how evaluations of service outputs and processes relate to political trust, mistrust, and distrust. Second, we conducted a vignette experiment to examine how exposure to hypothetical accounts of public service experiences—whether positive, negative, or ambivalent—shapes trust-related attitudes. Respondents were randomly assigned to one of five experimental conditions, which highlighted different combinations of throughput and output evaluations of public services. Political trust, mistrust, and distrust were measured using tailored survey items, reflecting the respondents’ perceptions of local governance. Preliminary findings suggest distinct patterns. Political trust is most strongly driven by positive throughput evaluations, while negative throughput experiences amplify distrust. Positive output evaluations, on the other hand, are more effective at reducing distrust than at fostering trust. Interestingly, mistrust does not conform to its commonly assumed role as a reflective or evaluative stance, it appears unresponsive to either positive or negative throughput or output evaluations, or their combination. By disentangling the drivers of trust, mistrust and distrust attitudes, this study provides critical insights into the relationship between public service performance, fairness perceptions, and political trust attitudes. Our findings call for further research into the interplay between procedural and outcome evaluations in shaping trust-related attitudes.