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Declining Trust in Elites and Why We Should Worry About It – With Empirical Evidence from Germany

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Viktoria Kaina
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‘WITHOUT TRUST WE WILL NOT SOLVE OUR PROBLEMS,’ WARNED Johannes Rau, the former German Federal president in his last ‘Berlin speech’ in May 2004. As one reason for an alarming loss of trust in Germany, creating a serious obstacle to necessary changes, he identified an irresponsible, egoistic and greedy behaviour among parts of German elites. Actually, Johannes Rau did not blame only political elites but also elite members in other sectors such as business, trade unions or mass media. His statement implies that parts of German elites are causing a decline in trust in Germany by losing touch with the people. Likewise, various observers in the public discourse argue that the immoral, cynical and increasingly incompetent behaviour of several elite members especially fosters a crisis of trust in Germany by creating a diffuse climate of distrust, pessimism, uncertainty and Zukunftsangst.

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Articles
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Government and Opposition , Volume 43 , Issue 3 , 2008 , pp. 405 - 423
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Copyright © The Author(s) 2008.

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References

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16 Although most Germans support the idea of democracy, it is less entrenched among East Germans and has been losing support in Eastern Germany since 1990. See Kerstin Völkl, ‘Fest verankert oder ohne Halt? Die Unterstützung der Demokratie im vereinigten Deutschland’, in Oscar W. Gabriel, Jürgen W. Falter and Hans Rattinger (eds), Wächst zusammen was zusammengehört?, Baden-Baden, Nomos, 2005, pp. 249–84; Kerstin Völkl, ‘Überwiegt die Verdrossenheit oder die Unterstützung? Die Einstellungen der West- und Ostdeutschen zur Demokratie, zu politischen Institutionen und Politikern’, in Jürgen W. Falter, Oscar W. Gabriel, Hans Rattinger and Harald Schoen (eds), Sind wir ein Volk?, Munich, Beck, 2006, pp. 57–81.Google Scholar

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35 I am grateful to an anonymous reviewer for drawing my attention to the BBC lecture by Onora O’Neill in 2002. See Onora O’Neill, Called to Account: The 2002 Reith Lectures, London, BBC Publications, 2002, available online at www.bbc.co.uk/print/radio4/reith2002/lecture3.shtml?print.Google Scholar

36 Viktoria Kaina, ‘Was sind Eliten?’, in Gabriel, Neuss and Rüther, Konjunktur der Köpfe?, pp. 16–24.Google Scholar

37 E.g. Suzanne Keller, Beyond the Ruling Class, New York, Random House, 1963; John Higley and Richard Gunther (eds), Elites and Democratic Consolidation in Latin America and Southern Europe, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1992; Higley, John and Burton, Michael, ‘Elite Settlements and Taming of Politics’, Government and Opposition, 33 (1998), pp. 99–115 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; John Higley, Jan Pakulski and Włodzimierz Wesołowski (eds), Postcommunist Elites and Democracy in Eastern Europe, Houndmills, Palgrave Macmillan, 1998; John Higley and György Lengyel (eds), Elites After State Socialism, Lanham, Rowman & Littlefield, 2000; John Higley and Michael Burton, Elite Foundations of Liberal Democracy, Lanham, Rowman & Littlefield, 2006.

38 Martin K. W. Schweer, ‘Der vertrauenswürdige Politiker im Urteil der Wähler’, in Martin K. W. Schweer, Vertrauen und soziales Handeln, Berlin, Luchterhand, 1997, pp. 220–33.Google Scholar

39 I would like to thank the Institute of Allensbach for putting the results at my disposal.Google Scholar

40 E.g. Schweer, ‘Der vertrauenswürdige Politiker’; Piotr Sztompka, Trust, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1999; Bertelsmann Stiftung, Politische Partizipation in Deutschland, pp. 64–7.Google Scholar

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