This article develops and tests empirically a theory of the effect on political trust of forms of behaviour that violate social, political and legal norms about how politicians ought to behave. These include taking money for favours, over-indulging in private life and making misleading promises...

Political Representation at the European level is organized around two principles: the territorial one and the partisan. Earlier studies have shown that the MEPs decide very much along partisan lines as long as bread-and-butter issues are concerned. When it comes to European issues, the national...

This paper applies to democracy Max Weber's classic theory of the instrumental legitimation of authority. It develops a model that takes into account the stimulus of institutional context and the influence on responses of individual perceptions of institutions, the experience of contacting...