Political Trust, Commitment and Responsiveness

TY - JOUR

T1 - Political Trust, Commitment and Responsiveness

AU - Festenstein, Matthew Isaac

N1 - © The Author(s) 2019. This is an author-produced version of the published paper. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher’s self-archiving policy. Further copying may not be permitted; contact the publisher for details.

PY - 2020/5/1

Y1 - 2020/5/1

N2 - Political trust has become a central focus of political analysis and public lament. Political theorists and philosophers typically think of interpersonal trust in politics as a fragile but valuable resource for a flourishing or stable democratic polity. This article examines what conception of trust is needed in order to play this role. It unpicks two candidate answers, a moral and a responsiveness conception, the latter of which has been central to recent political theory in this area. It goes on to outline a third, commitment conception and to set out how a focus on commitments and their fulfilment provides a better account of trust for political purposes. Adopting this conception discloses how trust relies on a contestable public normative space and has significant implications for how we should approach three cognate topics, namely, judgements of trust, the place of distrust and the relationship of interpersonal to institutional trust and distrust.

AB - Political trust has become a central focus of political analysis and public lament. Political theorists and philosophers typically think of interpersonal trust in politics as a fragile but valuable resource for a flourishing or stable democratic polity. This article examines what conception of trust is needed in order to play this role. It unpicks two candidate answers, a moral and a responsiveness conception, the latter of which has been central to recent political theory in this area. It goes on to outline a third, commitment conception and to set out how a focus on commitments and their fulfilment provides a better account of trust for political purposes. Adopting this conception discloses how trust relies on a contestable public normative space and has significant implications for how we should approach three cognate topics, namely, judgements of trust, the place of distrust and the relationship of interpersonal to institutional trust and distrust.

KW - commitment

KW - democratic theory

KW - distrust

KW - trust

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85067800801&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1177/0032321719852569

DO - 10.1177/0032321719852569

M3 - Article

SN - 0032-3217

VL - 68

SP - 446

EP - 462

JO - Political Studies

JF - Political Studies

IS - 2

ER -