WP1. ​Quantitative Indicators and Long-term Trends of Political Trust 

The aim of this WP is to build a robust and comprehensive knowledge base on the long-term developments for both trust in political institutions of representative democracy (political parties, executives, parliaments, judiciary) and trust in supra-national institutions that play an increasingly important role with respect to democracy at the national and international levels (the European Union, the United Nations, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization etc.). Available secondary data will be collected, harmonized, documented through the addition of metadata, and integrated into a dataset that will serve as input data for other WPs in the project and will be distributed to the public. The data will also act as background for developing a European Observatory on Political Trust, an online network of scholars, public opinion researchers, civil society leaders, policymakers with the aim of constantly updating and presenting to the European public the latest data on political trust - as well as providing and discussing the various accounts explaining the observed trends. With the TREUDEM project team providing major input at the initial stages, upon its establishment the members of the online observatory network will be encouraged to hold their own meetings, workshops, initiate publications and continue updating the database on political trust thus contributing to the long-lasting project effects and maximizing the impact of the study upon the end of the project.

Within the economy of the project, WP1 will act as a support package by collecting the necessary secondary survey and statistical data on topics analyzed in other thematic WPs: voter turnout and electoral behavior (WP2), support for democracy and democratic values (WP4), social movements, political parties, political orientations, and polarization (WP5), citizens’ participation (WP6), and predictors of political trust (WP7).

Work Package Leader: Prof. Claudiu Tufis, University of Bucharest, Romania.

Task 1.1. Literature review. 

Report D1.1. provides an up-to-date survey of literature and a comprehensive overview of existing approaches in the social sciences to measuring trust and trustworthiness, including interpersonal and institutional forms of trust. Part 1 sets out the conceptual framework and unpacks the definitions and approaches in the literature which have developed since the mid-twentieth century across diverse disciplines. It identifies three alternative perspectives, based on individual personality traits, learnt values in societal cultures, and agency performance theories. Part 2 reviews the pros and cons of alternative techniques and methods commonly used in research seeking to understanding trust and trustworthiness. This includes game simulations, field observations, laboratory and field experiments, case studies, formal modelling, expert surveys, longitudinal macro and micro panel surveys, and cross-sectional comparative surveys. Debate continues about the advantages of using experiments, facilitating causal inference about relationships through manipulating the context, as widely employed in behavioral economics and social psychology, compared with using descriptive observational data from social surveys, maximizing generalizability in any observed relationships, the approach most common in political science, comparative sociology, and studies of public opinion.The conclusion in Part 3 suggests that mixed methods are the most appropriate research design for the TRUEDEM project, combining the capacity to observe general cross-national patterns and time-series trends through large-scale representative surveys conducted across European societies with the use of survey experiments, testing the reliability and validity of our measures and facilitating causal inference.

D1.2 methodological paper offers a detailed analysis of the existing measures of trust. After a brief review of the most important debatable issues in the measurement of trust, we present the quantitative review of the trust literature published between 1980 and 2023. We then identify various measures of trust and complete the catalogue of such measures of trust, listed in the annex. The final section of the report focuses on the issue of harmonizing the trust data and developed a harmonization scheme to be employed in the TRUEDEM project (in particular, electronic database D1.3. Long-term trends of political trust dynamics). In the annex, a catalogue of the measures of trust is presented, structured in 5 sections: measures of interpersonal trust (Annex 1), measures of trust in other groups / countries (Annex 2), measures of trust in specific contexts (Annex 3), measures of trust with a gender perspective (Annex 4), and measures of institutional trust (Annex 5).  

Task 1.2. Quantitative database.

This third output, D1.3 Long-Term trends of Political Trust Dynamics (1980-2023): Dataset and Codebook, consists of an electronic dataset including 91 different measures of trust that have been used in academic comparative studies in European countries between 1980 and 2023, both in their original form as well as in harmonized versions. The dataset is accompanied by the corresponding codebook, which offers the readers / users of the dataset all the relevant information to be able to select the variables to be further analyzed. The first version of the dataset was released in January 2024. After this, the dataset will be constantly updated throughout the duration of the project, new data being included in future versions as they become available. In terms of coverage, the dataset includes data for 44 European countries for a period of 1980-2023. Te dataset includes 91 variables measuring interpersonal trust, institutional trust, and trust in other nations. Survey data included into the database originates from: Eurobarometer (EB), European Social Survey (ESS), European Values Study (EVS), World Values Survey (WVS), International Social Survey Program (ISSP), New Democracies Barometer (NDB) / New Europe Barometer (NEB), Central and Eastern European Barometer (CEEB), Applicant and Candidate Countries Eurobarometer (CCEB).

Citation: Tufiș, C., Ghica, L., Radu, B. (2023). Long-Term Trends of Political Trust Dynamics (1980-2023): Dataset and Codebook. Working paper no.1.3. TRUEDEM: Trust in European Democracies Project (www.truedem.eu). 

Task 1.3. Education resources.

WP1’s contribution to the society will consist of two products aimed at different audiences. The first one is represented by a set of educational materials on trust in political institutions in EU countries that will be offered as Open Educational Resources for Civic Education teachers to be used in their classes (D1.4). It will help pupils and students to develop a better understanding of the institutional setup in democracies, of the functions of these political institutions and the consequences of low/high levels of institutional performance. Educational materials including translations into main European languages will be made available for downloading from the project website. Submission: March 2024.

Task 1.4. Political trust observatory network.

The second contribution to the society is represented by the European Observatory of Political Trust, an online network that is intended to regularly update and present to the European public the latest data on political trust. In addition to international surveys, this tool will also include national and regional data sources (D1.6). The Observatory will cover the EU member countries and will offer data for some other European countries, aiming at becoming the main destination for citizens, journalists, practitioners, academics, and politicians that are interested in using up-to-date information on political trust. The Observatory will continue functioning upon the end of the project (2025) thus contributing to the long-term effects of the project. Members of the Observatory will be encouraged to disseminate findings of TRUEDEM and other studies on political trust in the EU (and beyond) at major European and international conferences (IPSA, APSA etc.). Submission: June 2024.

Task 1.5. Dynamics of political trust in the EU.

The aim of the report is to analyze the mid- and long-term dynamics as well as national and regional trends of political trust at local, national, and European level using an aggregated quantitative database D1.3. The report (D1.5) will become the foundation of the robust and comprehensive knowledge base on long-term developments in trust in political institutions of representative democracy (parties, executives, parliaments, judiciary etc.) – that will be complemented with the findings of other WPs. The report will also examine the individual-level and country-level predictors of political trust across the EU - which will serve as an input for the policy recommendations (WP10) and democratic innovations (WP9). Submission: August 2024.