Breaking and Building Political Trust: Postmigrant Political Actors and the Limits of Political Participation

This study explores how political trust is broken and rebuilt among immigrants in Berlin, Germany, focusing on the role of ‘postmigrant political actors’ — grassroots organisers, activists, cultural producers, and community leaders whose engagement exceeds conventional party politics. Drawing on participant observation and 36 qualitative interviews conducted between 2022 and 2024 with members of self-organised immigrant organisations, the article examines how experiences of exclusion and ‘trust-breakers’ shape political distrust among both citizens of immigrant origin and non-citizen immigrants. It identifies three central trust-breakers: the mainstreaming of far-right politics, persistent diversity gaps in German politics, and a transnational ‘double frame of reference’ shaped by experiences within and beyond Germany. The findings demonstrate that, although formal barriers and institutional failures undermine confidence in representative politics, postmigrant actors generate alternative political opportunity structures through grassroots organising, cultural interventions, and counter-publics. These practices transform distrust into collective action and contribute to rebuilding political trust through recognition, solidarity, visibility, political efficacy, and belonging. By conceptualising migration as a structuring condition of political participation, the study advances prevailing understandings of political trust, democratic engagement, and political agency.