Safeguarding the Future of Democracy

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Safeguarding the Future ofDemocracyJanine Dermody a & Stuart Hanmerlloyd ba Marketing at the University of GloucestershireBusiness School , Gloucester, UKb The Centre for Research in Service (CeReS) , TheUniversity of Gloucestershire Business School ,Gloucester, UKPublished online: 08 Oct 2008.

To cite this article: Janine Dermody & Stuart Hanmerlloyd (2005) Safeguarding theFuture of Democracy, Journal of Political Marketing, 4:2-3, 115-133, DOI: 10.1300/J199v04n02_06

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Safeguarding the Future of Democracy:(Re)Building Young People’s Trust

in Parliamentary Politics

Janine DermodyStuart Hanmer-Lloyd

University of Gloucestershire, Gloucester, UK

ABSTRACT. The tenets of democracy appear to be facing a crisis inmodern western societies, as trust in public figures and institutions–in-cluding politicians and government–declines and distrust of them in-creases. This decline is particularly visible in the cynical attitudes andnon-voting behaviour of British young people. This paper presents a

Dr. Janine Dermody is Senior Lecturer in Marketing at the University ofGloucestershire Business School. She is the Deputy Head of the Centre for Research inService (CeReS) and chairs the Academy of Marketing special interest group in politi-cal marketing. Her research interests include youth attitudes to politics, (non) votingbehaviour, negative political advertising, political trust and distrust, and sustainablemarketing. Her work has been published in a number of journals including the Euro-pean Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Management, International Journalof Advertising and the Journal of Political Marketing. She is currently engaged in re-search on the influence of political trust and distrust on youth electoral engagement.

Dr. Stuart Hanmer-Lloyd is a Reader in Marketing and Director of the Centre for Re-search in Service (CeReS), at the University of Gloucestershire Business School. Hiscore research interests are channel management and services marketing within thenot-for-profit area–particularly public sector, greener and political marketing. His workhas been published in a range of journals including the British Medical Journal, Journalof Marketing Management, and the International Journal of Nonprofit and VoluntarySector Marketing. He is currently researching political trust and distrust among Britishyoung people.

Address correspondence to: Dr. Janine Dermody, Gloucestershire Business School,The University of Gloucestershire, Park Campus, The Park, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire,GL50 2QF, UK (E-mail: [email protected]).

Journal of Political Marketing, Vol. 4(2/3) 2005Available online at http://www.haworthpress.com/web/JPOLM

2005 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.doi:10.1300/J199v04n02_06 115

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more contemporary conceptualisation of trust and distrust, from whichfour segments of young voters and non-voters emerge. A mix ofcalculative, predictive and identification trust-building strategies are ap-plied to these four segments to reinforce their trust and reduce their dis-trust, thereby reconnecting them with parliamentary politics. This paperconcludes with an agenda for further research. [Article copies available fora fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-HAWORTH. E-mail ad-dress: <[email protected]> Website: <http://www.HaworthPress.com> 2005 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.]

KEYWORDS. Distrust, trust, trust-building, youth disengagement,non-voting, political marketing

DEMOCRACY IN CRISIS?

Politicians need trust like a baby needs milk: for trust is the life-blood of democratic politics. But now the body politic has becomesick. The British public is today more mistrustful of its politiciansthan ever. . . . (Cockerell 2003, 7)

The tenets of democracy appear to be facing a crisis in modern west-ern societies, as trust in public figures and institutions–including politi-cians and government–declines and distrust of them increases,(Bromley et al. 2001; Bromley and Curtice 2002; Curtice and Jowell1997; Dermody and Hanmer-Lloyd 2003; Dermody and Scullion 2001,2003; Epstein 1998; Halpern 2003; Heatherington 1998; Nye 1997;O’Neil 2002; Putnam 2000; Rosenstone and Hansen 1993). Halpern(2003) maintains that as a nation we have become more suspicious ofone another than ever before. His findings show that in the 1950s, 60%of the British population believed that other people could generally betrusted, by the early 1980s 44% believed this to be true, and currently ithas declined still further to 29% and is predicted to continue to fall. In1985, 48% of Britons expressed quite a lot of confidence in the House ofCommons–this number had halved by 1995 (The Economist 1999).Heatherington (1998) and Rosenstone and Hansen (1993) maintain theBritish public’s trust in government has declined significantly since the1960s. Even where decisive leadership and economic success have in-creased political trust, this effect has been temporary (Citrin and Green1986). Similarly, the American public have frequently been character-ised as cynical, disillusioned and disengaged from their politicians and

116 JOURNAL OF POLITICAL MARKETING

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the political process (Abramson 1983; Berman 1997; Craig 1996;Damico et al. 2000; Kanter and Mirvis 1989; Miller and Borrelli 1991;Nye 1997; Putnam 2000), and according to Halpern (2003) are onlyfractionally less suspicious than the British public.

This disaffection is most notable in electoral turnout, which issteadily declining in Britain and the USA. In Britain, turnout reached anall-time low in 2001, with 59.4% of the British public voting (Mori fig-ures). Of particular concern though is the proportion of young peoplefailing to vote in elections. In the 2001 British general election, 61% of18-24 year olds did not vote, compared with approximately 43% in1997 (Mori figures) and 34% in 1987 (Swaddle and Heath 1992). KenClarke–a British MP–discussing his young Nottingham constituentsduring the 2001 election, observed: “I have never known an electionwhere so many sensible, intelligent young people would speak to meand make it quite clear they had no intention of taking part” (Cited inCockerell 2003, 7). A number of studies indicate this abstention is notconfined to national elections, it also includes local and Europeanelections–where youth turnout at each election point is steadily declin-ing (Bromley and Curtice 2002; Mori 2001; Mulgan and Wilkinson1997; Park 1999; Russell et al. 2002), not only in the UK, but in otherparts of Europe too. The issue of youth non-voting is consequently aserious problem for governments to address.

So why are an increasing proportion of British young people politi-cally disengaged? The notions of trust and distrust, cynicism, alienation,disenfranchisement, and irrelevance feature strongly in understandingtheir political disengagement (Bromley and Curtice 2002; Mulgan andWilkinson 1997; Park 1999; Russell et al. 2002). These relationships areillustrated in Figure 1. It can be seen that by increasing trust and reduc-ing distrust, cynicism and alienation can be reduced and efficacy in-creased, thus they are central in influencing young people’s votingbehaviour and consequently form the focus of this paper.

An analysis of the evidence pertaining to youth electoral behaviour(Dermody and Hanmer-Lloyd [f])–including the British social attitudesstudies and the electoral commission study on youth disengagement–indicates that young people are the most disengaged of all the electoralsegments in Britain. From this analysis, six key dimensions of youth po-litical attitudes and behaviour emerge:

• Turnout at elections is lower for 18-24 year olds than older voters,and the drop in turnout indicates an increasing predispositionamongst this younger age group not to vote in elections (Berman

Part I: Academic Contributions 117

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1997; Bromley and Curtice 2002; Cockerell 2003; Curtice andJowell 1997; Elliot and Quaintance 2003; Mulgan and Wilkinson1997; Park 1999; Russell et al. 2002; Schiffman et al. 2002).

• Young people are less interested in national political issues thanolder adults (Park 1999; Pirie and Worcester 1998, 2000; Russellet al. 2002; White et al. 2000).

• Young people perceive politicians and governments as dishonestand inefficacious–contributing to their belief that voting is a ‘worth-less’ act (Bromley and Curtice 2002; Mulgan and Wilkinson 1997;Park 1999; White et al. 2000).

• A large proportion of young people feel alienated from British so-ciety, and are therefore not voting (Dermody and Scullion 2004;Halpern 2003; Mulgan and Wilkinson 1997; Pirie and Worcester1998, 2000; Putnam 2000; White et al. 2000).

• Globalisation is undermining the credibility and authority of na-tional governments, thereby destabilizing faith in a nation’selected officials and reinforcing electoral apathy among youngpeople (Bromley et al. 2001; Dermody and Scullion 2004).

• Electoral civic-mindedness is less strong in young people than it isin older adults, contributing to non-voting behaviour, or more in-strumental, self-centred voting behaviour (Bromley and Curtice2002; Halpern 2003; Mulgan and Wilkinson 1997; Park 1999;Pirie and Worcester 1998, 2000; White et al. 2000).

These signify some highly negative attitudes towards parliamentarypolitics, and some fundamental differences between the political atti-


No voting intention

High TrustLow DistrustMild CynicismHigh Efficacy

Engagement Alienation

High Distrust

Low TrustArdent CynicismLow Efficacy

Voting Intention

FIGURE 1. Dimensions of Political Engagement and Alienation

Source: Dermody and Hanmer-Lloyd (2003)

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tudes and behaviour of British young people and those of older adults.Thus attempts to build trust and reduce distrust need to recognise thesedifferences, and trust-building strategies need to be designed for spe-cific groups. Politicians do recognise the need to address the elector-ate’s lack of trust in them and the British style of governance. Sevenyears ago Tony Blair was arguing for the need to rebuild the Britishnation’s faith in its politicians: “So low is public esteem for politiciansand the system we operate that there is now little authority for us touse unless and until we first succeed in regaining it” (Blair 1996).However, given that public esteem has declined still further, whilepoliticians are aware of the need to rebuild the public’s trust, they areuncertain how this can be done (Cockerell 2003); neither has this issuereceived much attention from political marketers. Yet trust is critical togovernance–without it a government cannot govern–“Without publicsupport for solutions, problems will linger, will become more acute,and if not resolved will provide the foundation for renewed discontent”(Hetherington 1998). Consequently building trust and reducing distrustcan lessen feelings of cynicism and disenchantment and increase the de-sire of a disengaged electorate to participate at elections.

This paper has three unique offerings. Firstly it presents a more con-temporary conceptualisation of trusting-distrusting relationships, sec-ondly it provides a more sophisticated segmentation of young votersand non-voters and finally, based on these, it offers strategic approachesby which politicians can begin to rebuild trust with their young elector-ate, thereby demonstrating the contribution that marketing can make asa guardian of western democracy (Dermody and Scullion 2001).

THE NOTIONS OF POLITICAL TRUST AND DISTRUST

Having established the centrality of trust and distrust in understand-ing youth voting behaviour, these terms now need to be explored.

Political Trust

Political trust essentially involves a positive assessment of the per-formance of governments, parties and leaders, coupled with optimismand confidence in their intentions to do “good” (Citrin and Green 1986;Deutsch 1958, 1960; Hosmer 1995; Miller 1974a,b; Mayer et al. 1995;Mellinger 1956; Stokes 1962). The negative political attitudes and be-haviour of young people implies they are not making a positive assess-


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ment, and neither are they hopeful or certain of the intentions ofgovernments, political parties and/or party leaders. It is therefore notsurprising that the parliamentary political trust of young people isdeclining.

The intensity of trust can vary, ranging in degrees from high to low(Miller 1974a,b; Lewicki et al. 1998). Further its evaluative dimensioncan take two forms: firstly ‘specific trust’–satisfaction with governmentoutputs and performance, secondly ‘diffuse support’–public attitudestowards regime level objects–for example, the values of a politicalparty, integrity of politicians–regardless of their performance (Citrin1974; Citrin and Green 1986; Miller 1974a,b; Miller and Listhaug1990). Consequently if a public have low trust in a political party’s val-ues, regardless of their performance success on delivering electionpromises, trust of them will remain low, subsequently having long-termeffects on public’s judgments of their governance (Hetherington 1998).Of these two forms of trust, specific trust is easier to build because thedelivery of policy is very visible. Diffuse support is more difficult be-cause it represents the growing suspicion and cynicism of the Britishpublic. As Hetherington (1998, 792) observes, “trust has continued toerode despite frequent changes in political authorities.” Thus asHetherington (1998, 791) concludes, it is declining political trust, ratherthan simply dissatisfaction with incumbents and institutions that is im-portant, because declining political trust creates “an environment inwhich it is difficult for those in government to succeed.” Additionally,with political trust continuing to fall, the role of government, in theory,will become more difficult, which in turn will continue to feed distrust.This is because higher trust translates into “warmer feelings” for bothelected officials and political institutions, which in turn provides leaderswith more freedom to govern effectively (Hetherington 1998, 803).

Political Distrust and Cynicism

If political trust is essentially a positive orientation towards govern-ment (Miller 1974a,b), then cynicism results from a negative orienta-tion, since it is essentially a position of distrust. This distrust can beexpressed in two ways: firstly a belief that the government is not deliv-ering its promises, thereby not satisfying the needs of the public; sec-ondly a pervasive disbelief in the possibility of their good intentions indealing with others (Barber 1983; Damon 1995). Thus political distrustis the expectation that politicians will not act in the best interests of citi-zens, even engaging in potentially injurious behaviour (Govier 1994)–


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this represents the views of those young people who distrust the intentof political parties, leaders and the political process to serve them well.Cynical attitudes towards government, then, typically focus on the in-tegrity, purpose and effectiveness of government and its officials (Durant1995; Jurie 1988; O’Connell et al. 1986; Starobin 1995).

The intensity of distrust, like trust, can also vary, with cynical atti-tudes ranging from ardent to milder degrees of cynicism, (Berman1997). Ardent cynicism is a highly distrusting position, where ideologi-cal beliefs are extremely critical of government, and the public are para-noid about the government’s intentions–encapsulated in the beliefs “thegovernment is always out to get the ordinary citizen” and “authoritiesuse smoke and mirrors to appease and mislead the masses” (Berman1997). In contrast, milder expressions of cynicism are typically charac-terised by less hostile beliefs about governments–they are less critical,less blaming and more evidence-based–thus facts about the actions ofpolitical parties are given greater weight. Consequently milder cyni-cism may be more influenced by communicated reason (Berman1997)–for example, unmediated communication from political parties–party political broadcasts being a possibility. Consequently electoral seg-ments characterised by mild cynicism (low trust) are less of a problem inbuilding trust than highly distrusting, ardently cynical electoral seg-ments–a description typically applied to young non-voters. Yet in design-ing distrust reducing strategies, as Berman (1997) concludes, it is theelectorate’s evaluation of the way in which government-citizen relationsare managed that will determine their degree of distrust and cynicism.With the evidence suggesting young people feel they are being ignoredby governments (Bromley and Curtice 2002; Henn et al. 2002; Mulganand Wilkinson 1997; Park 1999; Russell et al. 2002; White 2000), it ap-pears as if this relationship is being poorly managed, thereby feeding theirdistrust. Overall, as Figure 1 indicates, distrust and cynicism feed feelingsof alienation (Aberbach 1969; Finifter 1970; Miller 1974a,b), therebycontributing to non-voting behaviour. From the preceding discussion,then, it is not surprising that more young people are becoming alienatedfrom the political process, political parties, and political leaders. Throughbuilding their trust and reducing their distrust, more positive attitudestowards electoral participation can be encouraged.

TRUSTING-DISTRUSTING RELATIONSHIPS

The complexity and multidimensionality of trust and distrust is beingincreasingly recognised within the literature, including the political


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field (Cacioppo and Bernston 1994; Mancini 1993), and this providesthe conceptual base for our analysis. Traditionally trust and distrusthave been viewed as polar opposites (Rotter 1967). However, this viewis being increasingly challenged. For example, Lewicki et al. (1997,400) argue: “trust and distrust are separate but linked dimensions.Moreover, we propose that trust and distrust are not opposite ends of asingle continuum. There are elements that contribute to growth and de-cline in trust, and there are elements that contribute to the growth anddecline of distrust.” Similarly, Robinson et al. (1991) show that trustbeliefs are separate and dissimilar from distrust beliefs (cynicism) andfurther, that trust and distrust beliefs cannot be reduced to opposite endsof a single continuum. In measuring basic trust and distrust among col-lege students, Constantinople (1969) demonstrated that it is possible tomeasure trust and distrust as separate constructs that possess individualand distinct patterns of variation across gender, year in college, and timespan. As Lewicki et al. (1998, 449) state: “research evidence clearly in-dicates that trust and distrust can be operationalized as separate anddistinct constructs.”

In addition to trust and distrust being viewed as separate constructs, itis also the case that individuals can hold simultaneously trusting anddistrusting attitudes towards both individuals and institutions (Lewickiet al. 1998). In conclusion, they argue: “our review of available re-search points to the possibilities of separating trust from distrust andfor trust and distrusts’ coexistence” (Lewicki et al. 1998, 450). Thus itis not a question of whether the electorate trust or distrust, rather it is thedegree to which they both trust and distrust politicians, parties and thepolitical process. The matrix presented in Figure 2 illustrates this simul-taneous trust and distrust–portraying differing intensities of trusting-distrusting relationships across four cells.

Those individuals positioned in cell one have low trust and low dis-trust, they are not anxious, skeptical or cynical, but neither do they havefaith or confidence in the individual or institution. This is, then, essen-tially a state of ambivalence. In cell two the relationship is one of hightrust and low distrust. Here an individual does have hope, faith and con-fidence, unencumbered by cynicism or skepticism–the relationship isessentially one of shared values. In cell three the relationship is charac-terised by low trust and high distrust. Here cynicism, skepticism andwariness prevail without a sense of hope, faith or confidence–harmfulintentions are expected and feared. Trust-building and distrust-reducingstrategies will be most difficult to achieve for members of this cell. Fi-nally in cell four, the relationship is one of high trust and high distrust.


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In this relationship, a high degree of trust is given based on specific con-ditions that are monitored to ensure they are fulfilled. It is in this moni-toring that high distrust emerges, with the belief that individuals andinstitutions need to be consistently watched to ensure they fulfil theiragreed conditions of the “contract.” These relationships are not static–personal experience, dialogue, interaction and joint decision-makingwill all influence the intensity of trust and distrust–creating movementbetween the cells (Lewicki et al. 1998).

By conceptualising trust and distrust in this way, a greater under-standing of youth voting and non-voting can be achieved, coupled withmore effective strategies that recognise the need to increase the trust anddecrease the distrust of young people towards politicians, parties andthe political process. These segments and trust-distrust strategies willnow be explored.

BUILDING THE POLITICAL TRUST OF YOUNG PEOPLE

Politicians tend to refer to the youth electorate as if it is a homoge-nous whole. Where this group is segmented, this is done quite superfi-


High Trust

Characterized byHopeFaithConfidenceAssuranceInitiative

High-valuecongruence

Interdependencepromoted

Opportunities pursued

1

2

3

4

Trust but verify

Relationshipshighly segmentedand bounded

Opportunitiespursued and

Casualacquaintances

Limited

Undesirableeventualitiesexpectedand feared.Harmful motives

Low Trust

LowTrust

Characterized byNo hopeNo faithNo confidencePassivity

Characterized byNo fearAbsence of skepticism

High Distrust

Characterized byFearSkepticismCynicism

FIGURE 2. The Lewicki, McAllister and Bies Trust-Distrust Matrix

Source: Lewicki et al. (1998)

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cially through socio-demographic methods. A more advanced methodof segmenting the electorate is that of psychographics–where individ-uals attitudes, values, beliefs, motivation, involvement, personality,and identity form the basis for segmenting them (Schiffman 2002). Thefour voter/non-voter segments derived from the work of Lewicki et al.,(1998) are based on psychographic segmentation, which dictates youngpeople’s trusting and distrusting orientation (Dermody and Hanmer-Lloyd 2003). This revised matrix is presented in Figure 3.

It is not possible in this paper to consider all the trust-building, dis-trust-reducing strategies that might be applied to each segment. Insteadwhat is offered here are recommendations for re-engaging young non-voters and retaining the trust of young voters based on their profiles ineach cell, by applying calculative, predictive and identification trust-building strategies (Brashear et al. 2003), as appropriate.


PARTY LOYALISTS

High Trust

Political hopeParty faithParty confidencePolitical/party assuranceNo politcal/party fearNo political/party skepticismNo political/party cynicism

SELFISH VOTERS

Politcal hopeParty faithParty confidencePolitical/party

assurance

Political/party fearPolitical/party skepticismPolitical/party cynicismParty wariness & watchfulness

Party wariness & watchfulness

1

2

3

4

VOTERS

NON

VOTERS

AMBIVALENTS

No political hopeNo political/party faith No political/party faithNo political/party confidence No political/party confidenceNo political/party fear Political/party fearNo political/party skepticism Political/party skepticismNo political/party cynicism Political/party cynicism

ARDENT CYNICS

No political hope

Political vigilance

Low Distrust High Distrust

Low Trust

Political vigilance

FIGURE 3. The Trust-Distrust Voter Segmentation Matrix

Source: Dermody and Hanmer-Lloyd (2003)

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Cell One: Ambivalent Non-Voters

Those young people belonging to cell one are the ‘ambivalents’–those who have low trust and low distrust. These young people, whilstlacking cynicism and skepticism, also hold out little hope or faith ingovernment or the political process–they do not perceive any particularbenefits in voting, as philosophically and pragmatically there are nospecific reasons to vote. Consequently members of this cell are unlikelyto vote and a fairly high degree of apathy will exist. If they continue tobe disengaged with government, they will remain in this cell. However,it is unlikely their attitudes will remain neutral, given these young peo-ple do not live in a vacuum. Over time they will become aware of thepromises and actions of politicians from interaction with their peers andthe media. If no attempt has been made to build their trust, it may wellbe that as a result of negative media stories, compounded by negative at-titudes of their peers, they develop cynical attitudes towards politicians,thereby increasing their distrust. Thus as a result they move into cellthree–high distrust and low trust, where engagement strategies becomemuch more difficult to implement. Attempts to build trust, whilst keep-ing distrust low, could include providing young people with unmedi-ated information (without the media spin) about the policies and hopesof the political party, the nature of the political process, and whyyoung people are important in this process. White et al. (2000) and theyouth voting network (2003) advocate this type of approach. Thiscould facilitate young people’s feelings of empowerment and createsufficient interest to motivate them to seek further information and tobecome involved. This recognises that while some distrust will remain,trust can be increased, and with it the desire to vote. Indeed if a party isable to tap into the personal needs of this group, and tailor their policiesaccordingly, these individuals could well move to either cell two (‘partyloyalists’) or cell four (‘selfish-voters’). This suggests that an “identifica-tion” trust-building strategy is needed (Lewicki and Bunker 1995)–where shared values between these young people and a political party iscreated. This needs to be based on similar interests, goals and values(Chatman 1991; Das and Teng 1998; Lewicki and Stevenson 1997); andthis position must be genuine, since any attempt to mislead young peo-ple about these shared values will result in a significant increase in dis-trust, with trust remaining low (Anderson and Weitz 1989; Smith andBarclay 1997)–an immediate shift to cell three. Applied appropriately,this is a highly stable trust-building strategy, compared with calculative


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and predictive trust-building methods (Lewicki and Bunker 1995; Sheppardand Sherman 1998).

Cell Two: Party Loyalists

Those young people belonging to cell two are the party loyalists–forexample, the “young conservatives.” These young people have faithand confidence in their party, there is commonality between their valuesand those of the party, thus their trust is high and distrust low, and con-sequently they will tend to vote in elections. Of all the four segments,this group requires the least trust-building and distrust-reducing atten-tion; however, this does not mean they can be ignored, particularly withthe political cynicism permeating their age group, suspicion increasingin British society, and the frequently negative reporting of political is-sues by the media. An identification trust-building approach is valid forthis group too–they require reinforcement strategies to reaffirm theirshared values with their party–confirmed through the policies and be-haviour of the party and its leader. Thus the relationship needs to be nur-tured, creating a sense of identity through belonging. Being a partyloyalist means forgiving some digressions within the party; however,this loyalty will break down if the party betrays these principles, result-ing in their loyal young voters switching to the ‘ambivalent’ segmentand not voting until ‘order is restored’ and standards re-established.

Cell Three: Ardent Cynics

Within cell three reside the most challenging group with which tobuild trust and reduce distrust–the ardent cynics–those who are highlydisengaged from parliamentary politics. Here lie the majority of youngnon-voters–those who are highly cynical, who have no faith, no confi-dence and no hope in political parties–indeed expecting politicians tocreate policy with no attention to their needs, and/or ignore issues im-portant to them, thereby causing them harm. Such intense feelings ofdistrust may be reinforced through the highly attacking style of the me-dia in relation to politicians and government (Patterson 1993; Cockerell2003), since this reporting will feed their ardent cynicism. Thus the ob-jective here is to build hope, faith and confidence, whilst reducing fear,skepticism and cynicism. A calculative trust-building approach may beappropriate to achieve this–where the benefits and costs of voting for aparticular party will be rationally calculated (Coleman 1990; William-son 1993). Governments displaying genuine interest in the needs of


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young people may enhance this calculative approach, coupled with evi-dence that they use their powers to help not harm them (Berman 1997).A positive calculation is more likely to result from parties acting com-petently, efficiently and retaining their integrity–performing well with-out compromising their election promises, and providing believablecommunication of their performance to young people (Berman 1997).Providing young people with believable information both empowersthem and reduces the risks attached to voting. This, combined with thebenefits and rewards that voting could bring to them by voting for aparty that has tailored some of its policies specifically towards theirneeds–for example, policies offering strong economic development–may result in a calculation where the benefits of voting outweigh theirdistrust, thus their voting intention is developed. This may move themto cell four–the selfish voter–thus at least they become voters. Adoptingthis more calculative approach does, however, have its risks. Whereyoung people perceive politicians and parties are engaging in opportu-nistic behaviour to gain their vote, it is likely that any increase in theirtrust will be undermined and thus it will decline (Yilmaz and Hunt2001). Further this is the least stable trust-building approach, comparedwith predictive and identification methods (Lewicki and Bunker 1995;Sheppard and Sherman 1998)–thus there are a number of risks attachedto its use. If politicians do successfully navigate this approach, this relo-cation to cell four comes with a warning. By motivating young people tovote for a party that promises to fulfil one of their specific needs, for ex-ample free university education, this may compromise the needs ofother voters and also the ideology of the party. Thus the party may findit is unable to deliver on all its promises, which will shift these youngvoters back to cell three where their cynicism and distrust becomes evenmore fervent.

Cell Four: The Selfish Voter

In contrast to the party loyal voters, the loyalty of this group of youngvoters will only last as long as the party continues to satisfy their de-mands. As soon as the benefits offered to them begin to wane, they willeither switch to a competing party who can satisfy their needs or theywill cease to vote–their cynicism will have returned. This group, whiletrusting a party to deliver, are still highly distrusting of them–they areever watchful and vigilant. Given the tensions this can create within aparty, and the ideological compromises they may have made to attractthese young voters, the party itself needs to transform this group into


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party loyalists, thereby reducing their distrust, whilst keeping their trusthigh. An identification strategy (Lewicki and Bunker 1995) might beappropriate in facilitating this switch, where they come to recognise theshared values between themselves and the party, and where they under-stand their needs belong to a bigger whole of ‘what is good for you isgood for the country,’ thus creating a sense of belonging.

Maintaining this group within this cell requires a calculative ap-proach, whereby the benefits and rewards of voting for the party arecontinuously reinforced–resulting in a sense of empowerment. A pre-dictive approach (Deutsch 1960; Lewicki and Bunker 1995) may alsobe viable here, particularly for individuals who have resided in this cellfor a long time and who can predict how parties will behave. For exam-ple, it is not surprising that the Conservative party wishing to gain morevotes in the 2005 British election have attacked Labour policy on stu-dent tuition fees–students and their parents are readily able to predictthis opposing position–given the adversarial style of British politics.Thus both a calculative or predictive approach can facilitate the ‘per-sonalised policy opportunities’ available to young people–stimulatingthem to continue voting because of the direct rewards its brings, whilstthe party potentially continues to struggle as it attempts to satisfy the in-dividualistic needs of a range of stakeholders without compromising itsown integrity. In this cell particularly then, there are tensions betweensustaining young people’s voting behaviour, balancing this with theneeds of other stakeholders and safeguarding the values and reputationof political parties.

CONCLUSION

The importance of rebuilding young people’s trust in parliamentarypolitics is critical to the survival of democratic governance. However,focusing on trust to the exclusion of distrust will do little to nurture theirfaith in politicians and the political process. Understanding their trust-ing-distrusting relationships is critical to engaging with young people asvoters and non-voters. Segmenting young people based on their trust-distrust attitudes also facilitates a more considered way of understand-ing and responding to the needs, hopes, anxieties and fears of the am-bivalent and ardently cynical non-voters and the party loyalists andselfish voters. Given these differences, a universal strategy is unlikelyto succeed; instead calculative, predictive and identification trust-build-


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ing strategies need to be applied in different ways to foster trust andreduce distrust in each of these four segments.

This paper maps out a more contemporary approach to understandingyouth voting and non-voting behaviour. However, further research isneeded to clarify a range of issues, including:

• Knowing the size of each segment within the matrix–are ardentcynics the largest segment?

• How applicable are these segments to other nationalities?• What other facets of their psyche might impact on their (non)vot-

ing behaviour, and what impact do they have on the degree of trustand distrust?

• What is it specifically that young people trust and distrust withinpolitics?

• How do external influences shape their trusting-distrusting rela-tionships, e.g., dialogue with peers and the media, shifting societalvalues (individualism vs. community)?

• Where and with whom does source credibility reside to build trustand reduce distrust?

• How might trust-building and distrust-reducing strategies best beimplemented?

The challenges facing parliamentarians in gaining the trust of youngpeople cannot be underestimated, for trust is the lifeblood of democraticgovernance. Mathew Symonds, Political Editor of the Economist (2003,29), states, “. . . the trust issue threatens to be corrosive of everythingthe government is trying to do. Winning back the electorate’s trust is themost vital task facing Mr Blair in 2004.” This paper offers a startingpoint for all politicians to begin (re)building the trust of their youngelectorate, thereby safeguarding the future of democracy.

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Documents

Safeguarding the Future of Democracy