Restoring trust in democracy can be painstakingly difficult
- kencomclub
- 3 hours ago
- 2 min read
Democracy doesn't collapse all at once but hollows out from within as trust erodes, a pattern that has been documented across the United States, Europe, and South Africa using data from Pew, Gallup, and the V-Dem Institute.
On May 13, Dr. Jacob Lewis from Washington State University spoke about the relationship between trust and democracy, drawing on both political theory and his own empirical research in South Africa and Zimbabwe.
His online talk was the third in a series of discussions the Kenmore Community Club is holding as a way to get community members to gather for a meal and discussion face-to-face to counter the erosion of interpersonal communication posed by social media and artificial intelligence.
Dr. Lewis introduced the distinction between bonding trust (solidarity within tight-knit groups) and bridging trust (cooperation across racial, religious, or political divides), arguing that healthy democracies depend on the latter even though it is harder to build and easier to destroy.
Drawing on his own survey research, Dr. Lewis showed that living near political violence significantly reduces not only people's confidence in government but their satisfaction with democracy as a system, and that this damage extends to all forms of social trust, including trust within one's own community.
He concluded with findings from his field experiment in Zimbabwe testing whether community workshops could help rebuild trust after a fraught election. His team found that recovery is possible but slow, context-sensitive, and are no substitute for institutions that actually deliver accountability.
