How do citizens make judgements on political trustworthiness? A new model for decision-making in a low-trust political environment

Political trust is low and declining across many parts of the world. In the United Kingdom, MPs are widely regarded as less trustworthy than people in all other occupations. What lies behind this judgement? This article presents original evidence on the way citizens evaluate trustworthiness and proposes a new model for decision-making in the low-trust context of one of England’s ‘left behind’ places. The study makes a unique contribution to a largely quantitative field by using a series of focus groups to gain deeper insights into what trustworthiness means for citizens of one of the United Kingdom’s ‘forgotten towns’, considering factors such as emotion, personal experience and dialogue, which may elude survey or experimental methods. The discussions reveal an almost universal starting point of distrust, from which participants take several different decision-making strategies. The findings suggest that rebuilding trust will require cross-party efforts to fundamentally change the way politics is conducted, to create space for collaboration and compromise. Different approaches may be needed to build trust with different groups: for some citizens, conveying competence is most important while for others, positive emotions and opportunities for face-to-face interaction with politicians may be more influential.