Re-thinking trust in Scotland: from theory to practice

10 Sep 2026 11:16 AM

This report presents a literature review of work on trust in government, and uses this to re-think how Scottish Government could conduct future research on trust in government.

Introduction

This report has been written for Scottish Government’s Open Government team, representing a first step to develop a new trust and transparency strategy (which will form part of Scotland’s 2026 – 2030 Open Government Action Plan). This report was produced as part of a Scottish Graduate School of Social Science (SGSSS) PhD internship, which took place between August 2025 and February 2026.

The aim of this report is to map and critically assess existing evidence on trust in government and how that applies to Scotland. While the report has been written with the Scottish Government in mind, the hope is that the content can be of value for other actors and organisations that work on this and connected topics in Scotland and beyond.

Overview of the report

The foundational research question of this report is: what can Scotland do to improve levels of trust in government based on existing evidence? To answer this question, the report is sectioned into four parts.

1. A literature review which identifies the problem and the current debate on declining trust in Scotland and globally. It also introduces key concepts and definitions to understand before moving on to the next part.
2. Applying a wide range of scholarship and critical perspectives to ‘re-think’ trust and how to best measure it. Here the concept of ‘the family of trust’ is presented as a valuable framework to better understand and measure trust in Scotland.
3. Presenting three profiles from Ireland, Norway, and Scotland, with the aim of showcasing initiatives already done to improve trust in these countries and their reflections on the process.
4. Summary and further reflection before the final recommendations.

Recommendations

Improved understanding of trust in Scotland. There should be more research, in particular qualitative research and mixed-methods research, to explore and measure the ‘family of trust’ in Scotland and how people might transition between different levels of trust. The two concepts of ‘cynical distrust’ and ‘healthy mistrust’ are of particular interest here. Governments need to be able to better distinguish between the two, assess whether more knowledge on this can develop ways of constructively engaging with scepticism – and whether this can contribute to limiting the risk of ‘cynical distrust’ developing. How can we measure these, and what are the political behaviours associated with them? How, when, where and for whom does healthy mistrust (aka scepticism) turn into cynical distrust? This is important because the evidence set out in this report shows us that it is not a decline in levels of trust which in itself results in a threat to democracy, nor the rise of sceptical mistrust, but the rise of cynical distrust. When mistrust turns into widespread distrust or cynicism, representative democracy and its institutions might be under threat. Improved tools to measure and differentiate the different families of trust in Scotland are needed to better understand and frame trust, consequently assisting to develop effective and problem-specific initiatives.

National surveys in Scotland could benefit from seeking to further join the international aim of standardising and improving measurements of trust, whilst at the same time improving their own independent research on trust. The OECD is working towards standardising measurements of trust on a national and international level. This is considered a positive improvement to which governments should contribute. However, while the OECD data provide insight on general trends that are useful for understanding what drives levels of trust in Scotland, the OECD reports only at the UK level. Given the historic and current differences in levels of public trust in the Scottish Government compared to the UK Government, there will be a need for a combination of national and international research to best be able to measure and make initiatives to improve levels of trust in Scotland.

Encourage and enable more critical engagement opportunities with citizens, seeing it as important for government to let citizens practise scepticism as an indicator of a healthy democracy. This is key because the evidence in this report suggests that ‘critical citizens’ who are sceptical towards their political systems do not threaten democracy, but rather strengthen democracy by making the effort to stay informed and work for accountability from politicians and political institutions. In practice, this could look like for instance focusing on institutional reform which makes it easier for citizens to be involved in good decision-making.

Increased cooperation and openness between governments to share experiences on trust initiatives. For example, Scotland’s Open Government work is part of an Open Government Partnership network called Nordic+, an informal peer exchange group where government points of contact and civil society meet to cross-pollinate ideas, identify best open government practices, and share their experiences in implementing open government reforms. Governments should take inspiration from such initiatives of existing cooperation, to develop more effective initiatives by learning from each other’s successes and challenges.

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