The Erosion of Political Trust in Times of Institutional Impasse: A Cross-National Study of Parliamentary Crises

Abstract Book of the 11th International Conference on Modern Research in Social Sciences

Year: 2026

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The Erosion of Political Trust in Times of Institutional Impasse: A Cross-National Study of Parliamentary Crises

Fahri Bajgora

ABSTRACT:

Political polarization is a growing issue, and with that comes a lack of faith in the institutions that govern our lives. As governments continue to be paralyzed or gridlocked, citizens lose faith in their elected officials. The author examines this trend and its effect on political trust when governments cannot form a new government after an election, when there are failed elections to elect key offices, when legislatures are unable to act on their own due to extreme political division, and when snap elections take place. This paper draws on data from multiple countries, and describes how the severe continued inability of the executive branch to operate effectively has destroyed a significant amount of public trust in the institution that is charged with representing its citizens. Survey data has historically demonstrated an 8-to 9-point decline in trust toward parliaments in democratic nations around the world since the 1990s, but more recent trends indicate that this decline continues as a result of elite ineffectiveness and dysfunction and governance breakdowns in conjunction with growing public dissatisfaction. The result is an increase of “democratic fatigue” in voting behavior, a decrease of the average voter turnout rate, and a continued inversion of the basis for public trust in government. Increasingly, there is more trust placed in institutions such as the judiciary and civil service while at the same time, trust is decreased in institutions such as parliaments. Parliaments that continue to cycle through repeated elections and ongoing deadlocks lead to increased public distrust toward such institutions, thereby creating barriers to legitimacy, barriers to advancement in policy implementation, and boundaries to additional progress in regional integration and reform for nations like Kosovo. This research supports its findings with a comparative framework examining survey data trends from both cross-national and individual case analyses, along with the use of established political science mechanisms to demonstrate how crises of parliamentary institutions linked with extreme political division represent structural weaknesses of enduring political polarization and executive overreach.

Keywords: Democratic Fatigue; Institutional Gridlock; Political Polarization; Snap Elections