Tuesday 5 May 2026, 15:30-16:30 CET
Beyond Only Political Trust: Survey Evidence on the Distinct Content, Causes, and Consequences of Political Trust and Distrust
Join us for a new webinar in which Matthijs Gillissen and dr. Silke Goubin (KU Leuven) present new European survey evidence on political trust and distrust. Debates on political trust often centre on whether distrust should be understood merely as the absence of trust or as a distinct attitude in its own right. While quantitative research has commonly treated distrust as low trust, conceptual discussions increasingly argue that trust and distrust represent separate attitudes. This presentation brings empirical evidence to this discussion, by analysing survey data collected in eight European countries within the Horizon Europe project INVOLVE, which examine political trust, mistrust, and distrust, as well as their causes and consequences.
The results indicate that trust, mistrust, and distrust cannot be reduced to a single underlying concept, with trust and distrust/mistrust crystallising as two separate attitudes. Importantly, they differ in how common predictors relate to them. Distrust appears to be shaped particularly by perceptions of procedural fairness, whereas outcome satisfaction plays a more limited role despite remaining important for explaining political trust. The findings also point to distinct political consequences: a lack of trust is associated with electoral disengagement, while distrust is linked to support for protest parties. In sum: political distrust cannot be equated to a lack of political trust.
Webinar programme
- 15:30 | Welcome and introduction by Koen Verhoest (University of Antwerp, GOVTRUST Centre of Excellence)
- 15:40 | Presentation by Silke Goubin & Matthijs Gillissen (KU Leuven) on "Beyond Only Political Trust: Survey Evidence on the Distinct Content, Causes, and Consequences of Political Trust and Distrust"
- 16:10 | Q&A
Speaker bios
- ​Matthijs Gillissen is a political scientist and doctoral candidate at HIVA, KU Leuven, where he is preparing a dissertation on political trust, mistrust, and distrust. He is member of the Horizon Europe project INVOLVE, where he has contributed to several policy reports and articles on the political consequences of economic inequality and social policy. His academic training includes interdisciplinary studies at Radboud University and University College Roosevelt in the Netherlands. His recent work has been published in Political Studies and the Journal of Experimental Political Science.
- ​Dr Silke Goubin is a postdoctoral researcher (FWO Fellow) at HIVA and the Voting and Democracy Research Group at KU Leuven. Her research focuses on the political consequences of economic inequality, trust, social policy, and political inclusion. She obtained her PhD in Social Sciences from KU Leuven in 2021. Previously, she worked for the Belgian Development Agency in Uganda and for the OECD’s Public Governance Directorate. Her work has been published in journals such as Political Behavior, European Sociological Review, and the Journal of European Public Policy.
Practical information
- ​📅 Date & time – Tuesday, 5 May 2026, 15:30-16:30 CET (Brussels time)
- 💻 Join online, via Microsoft Teams – Join link or copy paste the following URL in your browser: https://teams.microsoft.com/meet/37594470299900?p=COqyuIH2H9GSGGtEez​
- 🎥 Recording – The webinar will be recorded and made available on this webpage after the webinar.
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