Webinar in November 2025

Closeness to Citizens as a Source for Political Trust? A Comparison of Opinions on Local Parliaments and the European Parliament 

(November 4, 2025)

In everyday political life, closeness or proximity to citizens is often cited as a key factor in generating political trust. Closeness to citizens is regularly taken for granted, especially at the local level in the European Union (EU). Our paper compares two main indicators of closeness to citizens, namely personal interactions (facework commitment) and the role of perceived expertise (faceless commitment). It then asks if a transfer (or spillover) of trust from the local level to the European level can be observed. Our analysis is based on data from a novel survey in six EU member states and 12 regions (N = 8700), which aimed to determine citizens’ proximity to and trust in parliaments in the multi-level system of the EU. The results of the paper highlight the importance of generating ‘faceless commitment’ (perceived expertise) as an indicator for closeness to citizens, which can be an important driver for increasing political trust. We found no spillover effects of trust from the subnational level to higher levels in the EU, which raises doubts about the potential of the subnational level to serve as a source and a promoter for trust in European institutions [read full paper here]. 

Assoz. Prof. Dr. Elisabeth Donat is a member of the scientific staff and Deputy Head of Department at the Department for European Policy and the Study of Democracy at the University for Continuing Education Krems. She holds a degree in sociology from the University of Vienna, and her doctoral research focused on the causes and consequences of the digital divide. Prior to her current appointment, she taught and conducted research at the sociology departments of the Universities of Vienna, Innsbruck, and Salzburg. Having completed extensive training in qualitative and quantitative social‑science methods, she has taught methodological courses in more than fifty offerings across universities and universities of applied sciences. Her research is interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary in orientation, with a particular interest in the role of subnational regions in Europe’s multilevel governance system.