This article adds nuance to current understandings of the relationship between the populist
leader and the public by using the concept of trust. Merging the literature on populism with the
growing scholarship on trust from philosophy, psychology and other social sciences, it argues
that following on from the populist leader’s appeals ...
This article adds nuance to current understandings of the relationship between the populist
leader and the public by using the concept of trust. Merging the literature on populism with the
growing scholarship on trust from philosophy, psychology and other social sciences, it argues
that following on from the populist leader’s appeals to similarity, the populist-public
relationship involves an intertwining of two forms of public trust: the public’s trust in the
populist and the public’s trust in itself (what we call ‘public self-trust’). Contrary to what
political and constitutional theorists have recognized as a tension between public self-trust and
the public’s trust in its political representatives, we contend based on the scholarship on trust
that in the populist-public relationship these two forms of trust can be mutually reinforcing.
And this mutual reinforcement, we suggest, has the potential to create a positive feedback loop
of public trust which, given the value of public trust to political leaders, empowers the populist.