Political and Institutional Trust Among Local Decision Makers: the Impact of Contextual and Individual Factors

Trust is fundamental to democratic societies, supporting institutional legitimacy, fostering political engagement, and strengthening social capital. While research has explored citizens' trust in political institutions, far less attention has been paid to the trust held by politicians themselves. Councils where councillors trust one another, the mayor, and other key stakeholders are better equipped to function effectively and fulfil their responsibilities. Existing studies emphasize both individual and contextual factors that shape political trust. At the individual level, characteristics such as age, gender, and education play a key role, with education emerging as particularly important. Education enhances individuals' capacity to critically assess institutional performance, fostering either trust or scepticism. At the contextual level, literature highlights the corrosive effect of corruption on institutional trust. Corruption undermines procedural integrity, weakens policy responsiveness, and erodes confidence in political systems (Rothstein and Uslaner, 2005; Warren, 2004). Drawing on Hakhverdian and Mayne’s (2012) framework, we hypothesize that local councillors' trust in political institutions is influenced by both contextual and individual factors. Specifically, we focus on corruption levels as the key contextual factor and councillors’ education as the primary individual factor. To test this hypothesis, we employ original survey data from municipal councillors across 29 European countries. By focusing on local councillors, our research aims to provide novel insights into trust dynamics at the local level and to address key gaps in understanding how corruption and individual-level characteristics interact to shape trust among local politicians