Closeness to citizens as a source for political trust? A comparison of opinions on local parliaments and the European Parliament in 12 European regions

In everyday political life, closeness or proximity to citizens is often cited as a key factor in generating political trust. Closeness to citizens is regularly taken for granted, especially at the local level in the European Union (EU). Our paper compares two main indicators of closeness to citizens, namely personal interactions (facework commitment) and the role of perceived expertise (faceless commitment). It then asks if a transfer (or spillover) of trust from the local level to the European level can be observed. Our analysis is based on data from a novel survey in six EU member states and 12 regions (N = 8700), which aimed to determine citizens' proximity to and trust in parliaments in the multi-level system of the EU. The results of the paper highlight the importance of generating 'faceless commitment' (perceived expertise) as an indicator for closeness to citizens, which can be an important driver for increasing political trust. We found no spillover effects of trust from the subnational level to higher levels in the EU, which raises doubts about the potential of the subnational level to serve as a source and a promoter for trust in European institutions.Points for practitioners Personal contact is not always key for generating trust. Citizens expect politicians to rest their decision-making upon perceived living conditions and opinions of their constituencies instead. Large institutions like the European Parliament can benefit from these results since they can hardly seek direct contact with all citizens. Social sciences data and research can be one source of information to gather such expertise about living conditions. Trust cannot be simply transferred from one level (subnational) to another level (national, European).