Webinar in October 2025

(Not) One of Us: The Overrepresentation of Elites in Politics Erodes Political Trust

(October 24, 2025)

Citizens in democracies are increasingly dissatisfied with democratic governance, distrustful of elected officials and view politicians as aloof and detached. We argue that this is, in part, due to the overrepresentation of elites in political office. We conducted four studies (N = 2009) in the U.K. focusing on the education sector. That is, we explore the impact of the overrepresentation of privately educated individuals—who represent >7% of the population but 30%–70% of the political cabinet—on political trust. Studies 1a and 1b measured perceptions and stereotypes of politicians, and Studies 2–4 manipulated the proportion of privately educated politicians in political institutions. Results show that trust in political institutions is eroded when there is overrepresentation of those educated in the private sector. We explore boundary conditions showing that effects are stronger for those who question meritocratic principles in the educational sector and that the effect is mediated through perceptions of deservingness [read full paper here]. 

Rebekka Kesberg joined the University of Sussex as a postdoctoral researcher in October 2020 to work with Dr Matthew J. Easterbrook in the EU Horizon 2020 funded project 'Understanding and Addressing Polarization in European Democracies' (UNDPOLAR; https://www.undpolar.org/). Within the project her research focused on threat perceptions and their association with voting behavior and political attitudes like populism. After the project ended, she moved on to work at the University of Amsterdam with Prof. Liza Mügge. Within the PUSH*BACK*LASH project, my work focuses on anti-gender movements and the narratives they spread on social media to create threat perceptions and mobilize followers. In April 2024, she returned to the Unversity of Sussex as Principal Investigator in my ESRC funded project 'Valuing Democracy: The Role of Democracy as a Superordinate Identity in the Justification of Political Violence'. The project explores how citizens in the UK feel about democracy and the extent to which they perceive being a democrat as central to their identity. It investigate boundary conditions under which people justify violent behavior against political opponents and aims to test interventions to strenghten citizens support of democratic governance across political divides.