Thematic Studies

Building on the theoretical and methodological assumption of trust being a multi-facet concept that comprises various types which can lead to both positive and negative outcomes for the political system and the society, and to address the complexity and multi-factor nature of trust-building, TRUEDEM project develops its main research line along the examination of mediators of trust that affect perceptions of trustworthiness which are addressed in a set of thematic studies, including:

1) Electoral behaviour and voting: elections can be analyzed as an indicator of transformations in the relationship between citizens-voters and political institutions and specifically those of the European Union. The opposite to the numerous studies of electoral systems, the characteristics of election campaigns, the results which they deliver and their implications for political trust, have received less attention in the literature. Yet, negative campaigns, polarizing campaigning techniques and highlight contested election results are among factors that contribution to the erosion of political trust (Lau et al. 2007). At the same time, other findings suggest that citizens tend to express greater political trust to institutions if they supported the winner in the last elections (Banducci & Karp, 2003). This highlights the need to address implications of voting and electoral behaviour for political trust through examining which new challenges for inclusiveness and representativity in democratic systems are posed by the declining voter turnout and growing electoral volatility. Attention will be also given to cross-pressured voters - those citizens who hold conversative and progressive views on different issues (Lefkofridi, Wagner, and Willmann 2014). Previous research suggests that in Western Europe, cross-pressured voters tend to prefer the right over the left since they attach more salience to cultural issues (Gidron, 2022). Yet, whether and how cross-pressured voters decide to participate or believe in the efficacy of voting remains an overlooked issue that could be further investigated (Hillen and Steiner, 2019).

2) Cultural values and norms: as already discussed, cultural values represent an important cluster of factors that both define the political values, ideals and expectation of citizens and influence the perceptions of the competency, impartiality, and integrity of the institutions. A major disconnect between the prevailing cultural attitudes and the actual performance of institutions can generate misperceptions with cynical and credulous citizens. Particular importance in this context is attributed to emancipative values which transform allegiant into assertive citizens with an elite-challenging mindset and which rise with the expanding education, information, and communication that enhance people’s cognitive capacity (Welzel, 2013). TRUEDEM will study the mechanisms and examine the patterns of interplay between political values, support for democracy and political trust on one side, and social, cultural, religious, and other values that constitute an important component of the national cultures in the EU on the other. TRUEDEM will identify those social and cultural values, attitudes and beliefs which are congruent with the support for democracy and reinforce political trust, and those which hinder it. 

3) Socioeconomic challenges: consequences of the corona health crisis, but most recently war in Europe and migration, low economic growth and rising inflation comprise new socioeconomic and security challenges which destabilize political institutions in Europe and which implication for political trust have not been addressed fully yet. In this respect, TRUEDEM looks at short-term and mid-term impacts of socioeconomic transformations thought to exert a bearing in the reshaping of European democracies, including the corona pandemic and related digitalization of work; migration and refugee waves (from Ukraine, Syria and other countries); economic inequality.

4) Information environments: as already discussed, openness, media pluralism, and free press are commonly regarded as an essential condition for an enlightened public. Thus, more informed decisions about trustworthy political leaders, political parties, civil service officials, and state authorities are likely to be maximized in open societies with freedom of expression, media pluralism, and accountability mechanisms, all closely associated with the type of democratic or autocratic regime governing each state, combined with levels of human development, expanding literacy, schooling, and media access in each society. TRUEDEM will implement a comprehensive analysis of the information environment in the societies across the EU to assess the openness of information flows (monitored by proxy measures of freedom of expression) which serves an important mediator of trustworthiness assessment and hence trust-building. 

5) Social cleavages and political polarization: Recent polarization within European and EU-member states societies is produced as the set of new and reshaped cleavages. TRUEDEM research agenda will address fundamental changes regarding the socio-political and socio-economic cleavages in European societies, including erosion of old and emergence of new political cleavages, shift towards the axiological cleavages, radicalisation of political attitudes and increased polarization, emergence of new social movements and political parties, and individualization and atomization of citizens. Based on the set of crises (fiscal and financial, migration, coronavirus, energy insecurity, but also institutional crisis of the European integration project – c.f. Ágh, 2016; Klíma, 2020) one can observe the creation of two “ideal typical” societal groups, labelled as “cosmopolitan liberals” and “counter-cosmopolitan traditionalist” (Rensmann, 2012). Such development is accompanied with the polarization of European and more generally Western societies. Specifically, at least some of the mentioned crises even deepened such polarisation between the “winners” and “losers” of transformation from the (post)modern industrial society towards the knowledge and information society (Sass 2020). Results of this analysis will be summarized in a set of policy recommendations aiming at weakening the political polarization and promoting the centripetal solutions.