Research Agenda for Political Trust

Edited by Daniel Devine, Associate Professor of Public Opinion and Behaviour, Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Southampton, UK and Malcolm Fairbrother, Professor, Department of Sociology, Uppsala University and Institute for Future Studies, Sweden

‘In several countries, including some that used to be seen as the backbone of liberal democracy, central institutions are under attack. Populist politicians are undermining the fairness of elections, the impartiality of the courts, the free mass media and the autonomy of universities. Behind this is a sense of widespread political corruption eroding political trust. In this utterly timely volume, Devine and Fairbrother present a number of impressive analyses of the crucial question for our time: Explaining trust in democracy.’

• Contents1 A research agenda for political trust 1Daniel Devine and Malcolm Fairbrother2 Inside the ‘black box’: understanding the micro-foundationsof political trust 15Ben Seyd3 Advancing research on the multilevel dynamics of politicaltrust 29Laura Stoker4 Towards evidence-informed policy interventions to increasetrust in public institutions 47Sarah Kups5 The increasing relevance of political distrust in 21st-centurydemocratic politics 65Eri Bertsou6 Philosophy and political trust 77Matthew Bennett7 Political trust in multi-level and global governance 91Lisa Dellmuth8 Ethnicity and political trust: a critical assessment andfuture directions 105Cary Wu, Kriti Sharma and Rima Wilkes9 Political trust, autocratic regimes, and the informationenvironment 119Marlene Mauk10 Political trust and elites 139James Weinberg11 Political trust, policy preferences, and the heuristicmechanism 157Malcolm Fairbrother and Daniel Devine12 The macro-consequences of political trust 169Viktor Valgarðsson and Tom van der MeerIndex 185