Did the Estonian Citizens’ assembly help restore political legitimacy? : Analyzing changes in vertical and horizontal trust among participants

• The Estonian Citizens’ Assembly (ECA) was initiated in late 2013 as a direct consequence ofa legitimacy crisis of Estonian political parties and representative institutions. The spark igniting this crisis was the unravelling of a scheme of illegal party financing. The response from the governmental institutions took the form of a democratic innovation drawing on public crowd sourcing and deliberative mini-publics. This study is conducted on the basis of a broad survey among the participants in the culminating deliberative process of the ECA (n=847). The focus of this paper is on the relationship between citizen participation and political trust. Two main research questions guides this paper: (1) How has participants vertical and horizontal trust developed in relation to their participation in the ECA?, and (2) What factors explain variations of change in trust among participants? While existing research questions whether citizens engagement in political participation functions as a source of trust, participatory processes alike the ECA are continually being initiated with the explicit aim of impeding  developments  of  growing  public  distrust  and  fostering  a  greater  trust  ingovernmental institutions.

Subject headings

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Statsvetenskap -- Statsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Political Science -- Political Science (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Democratic innovations

political participation

democratic legitimacy

vertical trust

horizontal trust.

Publication and Content Type

vet (subject category)

kon (subject category)