Political Trust in the New Age of Autocratization

Today’s crises of democracy and the corresponding rise of autocracies are often connected to a lack of trust. This article argues first that distrust also has many legitimate places in democracies, but that, ultimately democracies do indeed require a certain basic political trust: one needs to assume that one’s fellow citizens are committed to democracy as an ongoing project of free and equal people; they need to be “reasonable” in the Rawlsian sense. That basic trust can be betrayed when particular citizens vote aspiring autocrats into office. Under such circumstances, there is a special burden on these citizens to disavow at least the policies that could further autocratization. Arguments in public discourse have very often suggested the exact opposite: liberals must show empathy with the voters of authoritarian populist parties. The article then briefly considers two other possibilities of increasing political trust: militant democracy and open voting; the former is in many ways fraught with danger, though not per se illegitimate, as a response to crises of political trust; the latter ought to be rejected outright.