Trust and Political Behaviour

Abstract

As demonstrated, concomitant with falling trust in government is the falling popularity of political parties. But what changes has this had on voting in general elections? To what extent citizens are inclined to take part in politics and the political process provides a vital test for the ‘health’ of democracies. Not only is participation an empirical problem in terms of legitimating governments through the ballot box and articulating interests through non-conventional mechanisms; participation is also a normative problem, where each individual as part of a political community has a duty to invest some time and energy in the political process if the benefits of collective actions are to be reaped (Weale 1999). So while attitudes such as trust in government might be on the decline in Britain, this might mean very little if people’s political behaviour hasn’t actually changed.KeywordsPolitical ParticipationSocial TrustRelative DeprivationVote TurnoutPolitical BehaviourThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.