Re-thinking trust in Scotland: from theory to practice

3. Reflections – rethinking the debate and how to measure levels of trust

This section will ‘re-think’ the concept of trust by identifying key challenges in the debates, definitions and measurements of trust. Using existing evidence, it will then explore ways to address these challenges and problems. This requires us to re-think trust, shifting our understanding so that we can more accurately engage with and improve levels of trust in Scotland. The previous section (on thinking about trust) offered us a general knowledge foundation to move towards this critical approach on levels of trust and how to move forward from here. This critical point of view is important to start exploring answers to the report’s main question of ‘what can Scotland do to improve trust today, based on existing evidence?’

Towards understanding trust as part of a ‘family of trust’

As already mentioned, there is an ongoing debate about trust and the decline of trust as equalling a danger to democracy, for example through weakening policy and governance capacity (Devine et al, 2020). This view is at times referred to as the ‘crisis of democracy narrative’, where it is believed that the lack of trust, or prevalence of so-called distrust, erodes the legitimacy of democracies (Citrin and Stoker, 2018). But within the scholarship of ‘family of trust’, this viewpoint has been challenged as representing at times a rather simplistic understanding of trust as binary: to trust or not to trust (Carstens, 2023).

The ‘family of trust’ concept moves us beyond a focus on the concept of trust towards including the concepts of:

• mistrust, a form of political scepticism
• distrust, a form of political cynicism (Cartsens, 2023:4)

Zmerli and Van der Meer offer us a good overview of how these kinds of trust are related:

Political trust thus functions as the glue that keeps the system together and as the oil that lubricates the policy machine. Mistrust, or rather political scepticism, plays an equally important role in representative democracy (2017:1). It is when mistrust turns into widespread distrust and cynicism that representative democracy and its institutions may be under threat or at least challenged.

This highlights that trust, mistrust and distrust are not opposites but distinct concepts on a continuum which demonstrate different behavioural consequences (Devine et al, 2020: Carstens, 2023). It also raises the critical point of this report that, it is not the decline in political levels of trust which in itself result in a threat to democracy, nor the rise of sceptical mistrust, but the rise of cynical distrust (Carstens, 2023:298). Because as established at this point, it is when mistrust turns into widespread distrust or cynicism, that representative democracy and its institutions might be under threat (Van der Meer and Zmerli, 2017:1).

Mistrust can be demonstrated through citizens’ scepticism which is arguably a critical part for democratic engagement (Carstens, 2023). There has been a growth of so-called ‘critical citizens’ who are supportive of democracy but are expressing dissatisfaction with the performance of their political system (Norris, 1999:13). Pippa Norris argues that ‘critical citizens’ who are sceptical towards their political systems do not threaten democracy (1999: 270), but rather strengthen democracy (Carstens, 2023) by making the effort to stay informed and work for accountability from politicians and political institutions. Acknowledging the ‘family of trust’ means widening our understanding of the different levels of trust and recognising their different functions in a democracy. By acknowledging this, we might approach the current debate in a more nuanced way. This relates to the next section, which is about measuring levels of trust, its gaps, and how to improve it.

How to best measure the ‘family of trust’

Ideas of political trust are not simple and therefore not straightforward to measure (Norris, 2017:19). To improve measurements of trust, we need to reflect on the nature of what is being measured, as this report has done.

The first method to critically explore is surveys – most of trust research is based on survey questions (Marien, 2017:89), and the majority of our existing data derives from population surveys (Seyd, 2024:83). The OECD report on trust (2017:3) states that “with some notable exceptions, the measurement of trust does not have a long tradition, particularly within official statistics, and official measures that exist are not always collected in a regular and internationally comparable manner.” In recognition of this, the same OECD report (2017) was made as a guideline on measuring trust, in order to encourage towards a more standardised measurement between countries. The OECD regularly measures trust from the 30 OECD countries. Other local surveys on trust, such as the Scottish Social Attitudes Survey, have also taken inspiration from the survey questions asked by the OECD. This demonstrates the OECD’s positive impact in developing a more standardised measurement that can strengthen the quality of international comparisons as well as national statistics.

However, consistent, timely and regular measurement is less commonly carried out by individual countries. This raises the need to develop and improve (national) official surveys, to work towards a more standardised measurement. Alongside this, existing surveys tend to focus on measuring the concept of ‘trust’ and the extent to which respondents do or do not trust government. As a result, the measurement of other important concepts such as ‘active distrust’ or the levels of trust are not considered (Seyd, 2024:72). For example, the OECD report on Drivers of Trust (2024) includes no mention of ‘mistrust’ and ‘distrust’.

In addition, survey measurements (on trust) have been critiqued as broad and generalised, often making it hard for respondents to answer (Seyd, 2024).5 This relates to the challenge of wording and language – for example, there might be differences in respondents’ understandings of trust, as cultural differences affect the interpretations of words and questions (Marien, 2017:89). Marien (2017:89) further explains that “even within democracies, language, culture and institutions can exert an influence on the interpretation of the measurements that can potentially invalidate research results”. This might result in measurement errors, because trust has different meanings across different countries. Thus, there is a need to evaluate and seek to improve the wording of and concepts applied to questions of trust, as it is likely to influence the respondents’ interpretations and answers. Seyd (2024:47) especially finds population surveys on single-item indicators of trust to have weaknesses and argues that there is currently a potential over-reliance on survey-based indicators of trust, opening up a need to explore other methods to study trust (Seyd, 2024:8).

Experimental research designs are increasingly used to analyse trust6 and have made important contributions, as experimental studies allow us to study both the antecedents and consequences of trust, in addition to insight into trust formation and outcomes (Marien, 2017:89; Schilke, Schweitzer and Maurice, 2023). For instance, Devine et al (2025) use an experimental study to examine factors which influence government’s perceived trustworthiness. Based on case studies of Britain, Croatia, Spain, Argentina and France, this research found that benevolence (meaning that governments are perceived to act in citizen’s interests) was the most significant determinant of trust judgements across individuals and nations. Integrity and competence were secondary. So far experimental studies primarily focus on trust in individuals instead of trust between individuals and organisations (political trust) (Seyd, 2024:127). Nevertheless, it is a useful method for studying trust that should become part of a wider toolbox used to study levels of trust.

To summarise, as a method, surveys are not well placed to engage with the nuances of different levels of trust, mistrust and distrust, and how and why people might move between these. For this type of insight, qualitative research is a more appropriate method to fill in these gaps. However, as qualitative research doesn’t enable the tracking of trust levels across time, improving survey data is still important.

There is no one method which can best measure trust, because trust is multi-dimensional. A way to gain deepened insight is to apply both qualitative and quantitative research methods. For instance, conducting quantitative research which is then supplemented by qualitative research (such as interviews and focus groups) to explore concepts or questions further. By doing so we will be able to explore the consequences of the different levels of trust from various observational, qualitative, quantitative, and experimental approaches.

Recent work undertaken and commissioned by the Scottish Government highlights the value of using a qualitative approach to develop evidence and understanding on trust in government.

Qualitative research on trust and transparency was recently commissioned by Scottish Government and delivered by the Scottish Community Development Centre (SCDC), as part of a programme of work to develop Scotland’s Open Government Action Plan 2026 – 2030. In November and December 2025, participatory engagement sessions on the topic of trust and transparency were run with a total of 46 participants from across Scotland. These engagements were complemented by an online survey.

Part of this work explored the ideas that were emerging as this report was being researched and drafted. Participants were asked questions that aimed to explore the ‘family of trust’ concept: “What is it that makes you sceptical towards some organisations or people?” and “When does scepticism turn into distrust?”

Across the findings, participants expressed nuanced and thoughtful views on trust in government. They reflected on the importance of consistent and long-term behaviours that demonstrate trustworthiness; and the willingness to be open and subject to accountability. One group of participants raised the importance of recognising historic distrust and systemic wrongs carried out towards minorities, when it takes a long time for trust to be rebuilt. This highlights that perceptions and measurement of trust are not universally applicable but are often influenced by a place’s specific historical and political contexts.

Many of these participants displayed elements of ‘critical citizen’ behaviour, a concept introduced earlier in the report: they are sceptical about their political system and are making an effort to work for accountability by politicians and political institutions (Norris, 1999).

One could easily read their scepticism as exclusively negative - but the point to make here is that, on the contrary, ‘critical citizens’ should be encouraged and their behaviour can reflect signs of a healthy democracy. That is not to say that these views should be cast as exclusively positive, but it is important to acknowledge the important role of ‘critical citizens’ in society to maintain and improve a healthy democracy.

These findings providing us with much needed insight into citizens’ perceptions of mistrust and distrust, and how they relate to each other. In other words, they are addressing an important knowledge gap on trust in Scotland. As already stated, it is when scepticism turn into distrust that we face a potential threat to democracy. The task should therefore be to work on gaining more knowledge on what, when, and how this transition takes place.

Questions on the ‘the family of trust’ were further tested and developed during a session of the Scottish Government People’s Panel, the findings from which are being published alongside this report. Discussion during this session focused on participants’ experiences with and perceptions of different levels of trust (trust, mistrust and distrust). This moved this report’s research from theory to practice, developing a more nuanced framework to understand trust between the government and public in Scotland, as well as providing methodological insight by testing how to shape and formulate questions on trust.