Webinar in November 2025

Political Elites and the Democratic Duty to Trust the People

(November 19, 2025)

Political trust is usually construed in the terms of political elites’ duty to be trustworthy. This paper makes a modest yet radical claim, contending that in a democratic polity, political elites have also a symmetric prima facie duty to trust citizens to be competent and willing social actors. The paper offers a general framework for rethinking political trust as a bi-directional, rather than uni-directional, social relation. “Trust as an attitude” section begins by distinguishing trust-as-belief from trust-as-attitude, and contends that only with reference to the latter the idea of a duty to trust becomes plausible. “A comprehensive theory of political trust” section outlines my comprehensive theory of political trust. “Political trust as delegative and as coordinative” section distinguishes two basic dimensions of political trust: delegative and coordinative. “Political elites’ duty to trust” section introduces the notion of a political duty to trust, and contends that political elites have a prima facie duty to trust based on the specific features of coordinative trust. “Who belongs to political elites?” section specifies who is bound by this prima facie duty and “Democracy and the circle of trust” section reflects on how circles of trust can be initiated [read full paper here]. 

Roberto Frega is a senior researcher (Chargé de recherche) at CNRS and affiliated with the Centre d’Étude des Mouvements Sociaux (CEMS) at EHESS in Paris. He holds a doctorate (PhD) in philosophy from Université Paris 8, where his dissertation focused on the history of pragmatism. In 2011 he obtained his Habilitation à diriger des recherches, with a project on contemporary theories of practical normativity. 

Frega’s research lies at the intersection of pragmatist philosophy, social theory, and democratic thought. He has published on the philosophy of John Dewey, normative practices, public reasoning, democratic theory, and the theory of disagreement. He is also co‑founder and co-editor of the European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy, hosted at CEMS. At CEMS/EHESS, Frega is engaged in the intellectual life of the center and contributes to its mission of studying democracy, social norms, and public spaces through historical, empirical, and theoretical lenses.