interview
The traffic light coalition is also trashing its latest agreement on agricultural diesel. This back and forth happened more often this year. Political scientist Daniela Braun explains in an interview what this means for trust in politics.
tagesschau.de: Studies show that voters’ trust in political institutions is continually declining. It is currently affecting the traffic light coalition severely. Would you already call it a crisis of trust?
Brown: You hear and read the term a lot right now, but I wouldn’t talk about it at this point. If there were a real crisis of trust, it would be extremely problematic for the entire political system.
We certainly see that the population is irritated. I would currently speak of a crisis because the majority of citizens are dissatisfied with the work of the government – with the political output and currently with political results. But this can be remedied if the government’s work improves from the perspective of the population.
To person
Daniela Braun has been a professor of political science with a focus on European integration at Saarland University since 2022. She previously taught and researched at the Brüder-Scholl Institute for Political Science at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich since 2010.
She is currently involved in the “ActEU” research project, which, among other things, measures political trust and legitimacy using the survey question “How much trust do you have in Parliament?” should also be empirically recorded.
“Democratic values and norms are important”
tagesschau.de: What does it take for people to trust politics?
Daniela Braun: We know from research that there are two essential components: performance-based and value-based. Performance-based means that politicians provide concrete services for the population and that political processes and decisions must be well explained in order to be comprehensible. But also that your own political preferences are implemented.
But there is also a second block that is part of trust and is often forgotten in research and politics: trust also needs a value-based component. Democratic values and norms are important in a society that can trust politics. Democratic socialization has positive effects – for example, those who experience democracy live on a small scale at school or university through tasks such as class representative.
All of this leads to trust in politics. Although: One hundred percent trust is not good either, so-called “critical trust” is important – we can say that from trust research that has been around since the 1970s.
tagesschau.de: Why is the traffic light coalition currently unable to act to promote trust?
Brown: It seems to me that it is primarily due to the fact that the various coalition members themselves disagree. They themselves are not clear about what is really important now. As a result, they have difficulty setting priorities and formulating them clearly: What do they want to achieve now and what is not so important to them?
“The verdict was an opportunity”
tagesschau.de: Has this been made worse by the Federal Constitutional Court’s decision on the debt brake?
Brown: This verdict was perhaps even more of an opportunity to focus better now – and to create a clear plan for what is still possible. The government has to explain this to the population again and again: especially what has to be done without in the current situation because there simply isn’t enough money for it.
tagesschau.de: After the ruling from Karlsruhe, the leaders of the traffic light coalition announced a political agreement – only to argue about it again. Can a politics that does not trust itself expect trust from citizens?
Brown: Such dissatisfaction with processes can lead to a trust problem and thus a legitimacy problem. That is exactly what we mean by performance-based trust: when political processes are no longer easy to understand and can no longer be explained well.
In this respect, the government should try to speak with a clear, unified voice. What we have experienced quite often over the past year or two is the opposite: a decision has been made and then quickly revised and re-discussed.
“Too much conflict is irritating”
tagesschau.de: The traffic light coalition consists of three very different parties – their positions are often different. If they do it too publicly, it seems like a constant quarrel; if they don’t do it publicly, it seems non-transparent. What would you advise the three parties?
Brown: It is a dilemma for the coalition because, of course, in a democracy conflict and strife are part of the equation. Debates are important to the political process, as is finding compromises. On the other hand, too much conflict causes irritation on the part of citizens. The political actors are faced with a major challenge in how to tackle the problem.
It could depend on which group of people you have in mind. Those interested in politics are likely to have fewer problems with such conflicts, but those less informed and interested may become more disillusioned by conflict headlines. You would probably have to communicate more specifically to the target group.
I would tend to “spare” those population groups that have little interest in politics and political processes the conflicts and instead explain the solutions to the problems more intensively. However, those citizens who have a greater interest in political issues can be more confronted with the underlying conflicts. This is a thesis that I would like to explore next year in our current European Union-funded project on political trust in Europe (ActEU).
Even if it is tedious: politicians have to explain again and again why certain conflicts occurred and why a certain agreement was reached.
Media reporting is not always helpful – journalism is subject to a certain logic that negative headlines often bring more. In this respect, conflict headlines are given more prominence than reports of agreement.
“You also have to get involved”
tagesschau.de: To Many people now use social networks to form opinions and obtain information – here facts are often distorted and polarization is strong. Does this help the right-wing populist parties to be successful, combined with the high level of dissatisfaction?
Brown: This is of course obvious because there is good information available on the Internet, but there is also often fake news. From a political science perspective, there are certainly connections, but there is still no clear answer.
tagesschau.de: Is it only politicians who are responsible when it comes to trust – or does civil society also have to strive for democracy?
Brown: Simply experiencing democracy through membership in clubs, especially when it comes to conflict management, can promote positive democratic awareness – from sports clubs to civil society engagement. You also have to be involved in a society so that you can feel trust.
On the other hand, if money for clubs and political education is cut from politics, this does not have any short-term effects, but it does have medium and long-term negative effects on building trust in democracy. Politicians should keep this in mind.
The interview is conducted by Corinna Emundts, tagesschau.de