Populism as the crisis of political trust

Abstract

Populism is an ideal litmus test to interpret the crisis of trust that today seems to affect liberal democracies and their institutions. It is by looking at this crisis that some deep motivations of populism can be understood. However, it is also by analyzing populism as a crisis of political trust that we can understand in which way the “prism of trust” is essential to understand political phenomena. This article shows how populism appears as a crisis of political trust in democracy, in representation, and in authority, and try to develop a theoretical framework about this phenomenon in terms of political theory.