‘I do not trust any of them anymore’: Institutional distrust and corrective practices in pro-asylum activism in Finland

Abstract

Although there is extensive research on how institutional trust and distrust play out in the forms political participation takes, the existing research lacks thorough analysis on what trust and distrust actually consist of, that is, how individuals evaluate institutions as trustworthy or not and what consequences this evaluation has for individuals and their relation to the state more broadly. Drawing on qualitative research on Finnish citizens who engage in pro-asylum activism, we examine how institutional distrusting evolves as a reflexive process. By analysing citizens’ trust judgements on institutional practices and actions that follow, we argue that distrust in institutions enhances activists’ attempts to engage in corrective practices, in other words taking over the functions of institutions when noticing mistakes or unfairness in institutional practices. Corrective practices reinforce activists’ distrust in the asylum-related institutions and make them question the ‘myth’ of Finland as an equal and inclusive country. Engaging in corrective practices is emotionally and economically taxing. Despite negative consequences of institutional distrust, activists continue their work indicating that they continue to trust the democratic system in Finland and its capability to absorb their claims in the long run. Institutional distrust and generalised trust can then coexist.