Introduction
We measure everything that makes societies succeed, GDP, inflation, stock prices, even consumer sentiment. Yet we almost never measure trust. Perhaps that’s because trust refuses to be quantified. It’s intangible, shifting, and deeply human. Economists can chart growth; sociologists can map institutions. But the quiet faith that citizens place in those institutions or withdraw from them, is far harder to capture.
Trust is layered and uneven. We trust our friends differently than our bosses, our bosses differently than our politicians. Even among peers, trust fluctuates, shaping how we cooperate, share, and believe. If it’s this complex between individuals, imagine its fragility at the scale of nations.
That fragility is showing. Across the world, citizens are losing faith in the institutions that were once the anchors of public life. Governments, media, and even the private sector now face a legitimacy deficit that no constitutional reform or policy tweak can easily fix.
Why does this matter? Because trust is the invisible infrastructure of governance. Without it, the most elegant institutional design fails to function. Laws are ignored, reforms stall, and participation fades. The machine of government no matter how well engineered, cannot run if its individual gears refuse to turn.
What is the trust deficit?
Across the world, the machinery of government is grinding. Its gears still turn, but slowly and unevenly, corroded not by age, but by the withdrawal of public trust. This corrosion is not confined to the state alone. It extends through the entire institutional ecosystem: from media to business, from education to civic life. What we are witnessing is not distrust of a government, but a collective unravelling of faith in the architecture of modern society.
In the past, governments set the agenda and watched its effects ripple outward. Today, those ripples flow both ways. Corporate influence shapes public policy, online discourse shapes electoral outcomes, and the collapse of media credibility amplifies cynicism toward all authority. Institutions no longer operate in silos, they share legitimacy, and they share its loss. For governance to function now, society as a whole must remain in a state of mutual trust.
Yet governments themselves have often engineered their own distrust. They relaxed lobbying rules that blurred the line between public duty and private interest. They meddled in journalism, defining what counts as acceptable truth, especially during crises like COVID-19. They let infrastructure decay while pouring budgets into war or corporate tax relief. The result is a bleak feedback loop where citizens no longer trust the state because it seems captured, and the state, sensing hostility, becomes ever more insular and defensive.
The real damage lies not just in these grievances, but in the emotional fatigue beneath them. The quiet belief among citizens is that they are being punished for doing everything right. When law-abiding people feel that fairness is a losing strategy, the social contract begins to fray. Declining trust is both a symptom and a driver of that fracture. Economic anxiety feeds mistrust, and mistrust deepens economic stagnation [1].
Why institutional design isn’t enough
Here lies the paradox of institutional trust. We assume that if an institution is designed efficiently, it will deliver faithfully. We build systems founded on ideals of integrity and competition, and in doing so, we begin to view politics like a marketplace, one where rival interests supposedly refine the product until it performs perfectly.
But this faith in self-correction is misplaced. Inefficiencies, loopholes, and unintended consequences are not neutral flaws, they are opportunities for manipulation. The fixes rarely keep pace with the failures. And no matter how elegant an institution appears from the outside, what matters is how it runs. A Rolls-Royce without an engine is just a polished metal shell.
In this pursuit of appearance, institutions have become obsessed with best practice rather than better outcomes. The result is a theatre of competence, glossy frameworks, performance metrics, and strategy documents that mask operational paralysis. Systems that seem functional from the outside often stall in practice, leading to drift, misuse, and directionless steering.
We accept that large businesses should have a say in policymaking but rarely ask how loud that voice should be. We value truth in journalism but hesitate to install safeguards against narrative capture and neutrality. We defend electoral mandates but fail to ensure that power, once granted, remains accountable.
Designing a system to look good without ensuring it works well invites exploitation. Over time, the very actors entrusted with protecting the public begin to master the system’s weaknesses instead. And when citizens see that the rules benefit insiders first, the corrosion of trust becomes complete.
The psychology of political trust
Even if trust cannot be precisely measured, we can still trace where it comes from. The old adage that respect is earned, not given captures the essence of our dilemma. Trust works the same way but with higher stakes. It is not a sentiment we bestow freely, it is a verdict delivered over time.
In our personal and professional lives, we constantly test the people around us. We give them tasks, watch how they handle pressure, and decide, often subconsciously, whether they are dependable. Trust is a cumulative result of consistency, not a gesture of goodwill.
Yet many in power still seem shocked by the public’s scepticism. They mistake the withdrawal of trust for cynicism, when in fact it is reasoned caution. Blind trust is dangerous, evolution taught us that long before politics did. Why, then, should citizens grant faith to leaders who have repeatedly broken it? The slogans of renewal such as “I’ll bring change” or “I’m different from those before me” now provoke reflex suspicion. Decades of betrayal have turned these phrases into warnings, not promises.
Trust, therefore, is not the product of naïveté but of rational assessment. It must be earned through sustained action, not slogans. Governments spend vast resources proclaiming what they intend to do rather than demonstrating what they have done. The result is a politics of marketing over substance. A wiser model would narrow its ambitions but deepen its delivery: fewer promises, honestly kept. Only then can institutions rebuild the credibility that no amount of branding can buy.
Our understanding of how to gain trust has been hijacked by the proliferation of marketing language and data obsession. Leaders have come to equate engagement with agreement; mistaking clicks and impressions for genuine belief. In the process, they overlook what people value, a system built by everyone, that works for everyone. In an age where information exposes every shortcoming, authenticity has become the only sustainable currency. Citizens no longer need hypothetical visions of what could be achieved; they need tangible proof of what has been delivered.
Rebuilding legitimacy, lessons for those in charge
If trust is to be rebuilt, those in power must start by rethinking how they earn it. Participation must become the foundation of legitimacy. Citizens do not need to decide every policy, but they must feel that their voice can shape the outcome. True participation is not the illusion of consultation after decisions are made, it is the opportunity to influence the process before they are. Without that, democracy becomes a spectator sport.
Institutions must also abandon the culture of pageantry. Systems that exist to look efficient rather than to be effective are destined to fail. Governance is not theatre; results, not rituals, sustain faith. Leaders must learn that authenticity, not PR polish is the new form of credibility. Sanitised language and choreographed empathy convince no one. Difficult problems demand unvarnished conversations, and pretending otherwise only deepens alienation.
Finally, accountability must once again mean something. In no other profession can one repeatedly underdeliver and remain employed, yet in politics this has become the norm, even the route to promotion. Citizens recognise the absurdity of this double standard. The same people told to “believe in the system” see that the system does not believe in consequences. Restoring accountability is not punitive; it is restorative. It signals that power still belongs to those who lend it, not those who wield it.
Underpinning all of this is a need to reopen the gates of participation. When citizens are dismissed as uninformed simply because they disagree, trust decays into contempt. It is not the job of politicians to shepherd the minds of the masses, but to steer their states in the direction their citizens demand. It is a fallacy to believe there is always a single right or wrong path; choice itself is the freedom to make mistakes and learn from them. Governance is not an exercise in managing the public but in representing it. People do not demand perfection they demand respect, the respect of being heard, and the dignity of seeing their voice matter.
Conclusion: Governance is a relationship not architecture
To conclude, if trust is the foundation of good governance, then our institutions must begin to see themselves not as machines of administration but as relationships sustained across generations. Building those relationships will not yield immediate dividends, but over time it will create the stable confidence from which all other progress flows, economic, social, and civic alike.
A society that trusts its institutions is one that can disagree without fracturing, adapt without fear, and grow without losing its cohesion. Rebuilding that trust will require courage: the courage to admit failure, to confront stagnation, and to abandon the illusion that complexity justifies inaction. The paralysis of modern governance is not inevitable; it is a choice, and it can be unlearned.
We are living through an unprecedented moment, perhaps the first in history where many no longer believe they will live better lives than those who came before. That loss of faith is not a matter of economics alone; it is a symptom of broken belief in the systems meant to carry us forward. Yet the situation is not irredeemable. Trust, once lost, can be rebuilt, not by slogans or reforms alone, but by a renewed partnership between leaders and the led. The future depends on whether we still believe that such a partnership is possible.
Sources:
- OECD (2025), Government at a Glance 2025, OECD Publishing, Paris [Available] https://doi.org/10.1787/0efd0bcd-en.
- Edelman Trust Barometer (2025) [Available] https://www.edelman.com/sites/g/files/aatuss191/files/2025-01/2025%20Edelman%20Trust%20Barometer%20Global%20Report_01.23.25.pdf
- Gallup News (2025) Federal Government Less Trusted to Act in Society’s Interest [Available] https://news.gallup.com/poll/693446/federal-government-least-trusted-act-society-interest.aspx
Disclaimer: Statements expressed in this blog reflect the personal opinion of the author and do not represent the position or policy of GBPG or entities we are affiliated with. While we strive to ensure the accuracy of the information presented, we make no guarantees regarding its completeness, reliability, or accuracy.
Image credits: Margarethe Hubauer International Illustration 2024
