Politicians on political trust: substantive and strategic use in four West European parliaments (1998–2018)

Although political trust is commonly understood as a relation between subject (truster) and object (trustee), research almost exclusively focuses on citizens. The inherent agency of politicians has been overlooked. This article sets three aims: (1) to develop a codebook to analyse trust in texts and speeches by politicians, (2) to describe the use of political trust in parliamentary debates, and (3) to understand how MPs employ political trust in these debates. It studies annual state-of-the-nation debates in four European (high-trust and low-trust; majoritarian and proportional) democracies between 1998 and 2018. Generally, political trust receives little attention in these debates. Over time, politicians’ attention for political trust coincides with economic hardship and rising radical-right populism. Moreover, politicians discuss trust predominantly for strategic purposes (discrediting others; praising themselves), rather than as a substantive concern. This may contribute to a politicisation of political distrust that may harm legitimacy in the long run.