The Trust Crisis

Yann Algan (1, 2)

1 ECON - Département d'économie (Sciences Po)
2 CEPREMAP - Centre pour la recherche économique et ses applications

The rise of antisystem forces and populism testifies to a deep trust crisis of citizens, both towards their institutions and others, as we show in a new book “The origins of populism” (with D. Cohen, E. Beasley, M. Foucault). The votes for antisystem parties is fueled first and foremost by a sharp deterioration of citizens’ trust in their institutions, experts and elites over the last three decades. According to the World Values Survey, the share of people who do not trust Parliament has increased from 47% to 77% in the United States, from 37% to 64% in France, and from 60% to 77% in Britain since the early 80s. [First paragraph]

Keywords: antisystem parties; deterioration of citizens’ trust in their institutions; loneliness of individuals

Domains: Humanities and Social Sciences; Political science

Yann Algan. The Trust Crisis. 2019. ⟨hal-03392741⟩