Beyond Trust and Distrust: Developing and Validating a Two-Dimensional Scale of Political Trust

Purpose: This study aims to address persistent paradoxes in the measurement of political trust by developing and validating a novel two-dimensional scale. The primary objective is to disentangle dispositional trust (trust independent of performance) from evaluative trust (trust conditional on performance) and thereby differentiate blind trust, cynicism, and skepticism. The major hypothesis is that citizens exhibit trust patterns or styles that existing single-dimensional measures fail to capture. The two-dimensional approach will be better geared towards understanding changes in democratic engagement and attitudes toward political institutions. Background: Political trust is fundamental to democracy, influencing citizens’ engagement and perceptions of legitimacy. However, existing measures in political science and political psychology simplify the construct, treating trust as a one-dimensional linear continuum, and consequently large amounts of literature are dedicated to the question what level of trust is healthy for democracy. This focus limits the capacity to understand phenomena such as declining trust or increasing political alienation. Building on the limitations in the current literature, we integrate insights from political science and psychology to propose a two-dimensional conceptualization that better captures political trust. Methods: The study employed a mixed-methods approach, beginning with an extensive literature review and qualitative pre-testing involving six focus groups in three languages to refine scale items. A large-scale pilot survey with 800 Dutch participants, representative of the population, was conducted to validate the scale. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were used to test for a two-dimensional structure of political trust, examining dimensions of evaluative and dispositional trust and of levels of trust and distrust. Results: Analysis revealed significant heterogeneity in political trust. Substantial parts of the sample exhibited either evaluative trust or evaluative distrust (trust or distrust conditional on performance), or dispositional distrust (such as cynicism). A much smaller part exhibited dispositional trust (such as blind trust). This suggests that those who trust unconditional of government performance are in the minority. For each type of trust hypotheses can be generated specifying how much changes in government performance will or will not affect their trust. Hypotheses will be tested in April in eight European countries. The current findings underscore the need to go beyond traditional one-dimensional measures, and the remainder of this project is dedicated to the development of a cross-country reliable scale to be used in surveys in democracies in Europe and beyond. Conclusions: This study provides a validated two-dimensional scale that enables researchers to disentangle the nuanced facets of political trust. The findings suggest that political attitudes are conditional for some citizens, while others hold generalized attitudes regardless of institutional performance. The scale has broad implications for understanding the dynamics of political trust, especially in diagnosing and addressing the causes of declining trust and political alienation. Future research within this international and longitudinal project aims to expand the scale’s application to other democratic contexts and over time.