Political legitimacy is an ongoing project of constructing and repairing trust

Evidence

Talcott Parsons was right in regarding the expressive solidarity of the small group as the basis of political trust precisely in relation to the unavoidable indeterminacy of complex political processes. The same circumstance points to the fact that subsystems of society such as the political, and perhaps the economic system, which are not adequate for present-day requirements, remain dependent on other fields of action where the orientation to the present, required for the formation of trust, has been preserved. — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 130 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Trust was the necessary condition of all political association; Cohesion and trust check government power, not merely establish social order; Political trust rests on small-group solidarity amid complex indeterminacy — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 130 (+14 more)

Related

• Trust was the necessary condition of all political association (similarity 0.86)
• Political trust rests on small-group solidarity amid complex indeterminacy (similarity 0.86)
• Political parties are necessary but not sufficient for durable legitimacy. (similarity 0.81)
• Legitimate government conceives power as a mutually observed trust (similarity 0.80)
• Trust in practical capacity outweighs trust in politicians’ good intentions (similarity 0.79)
• Treating trust as central to politics does not require naive credulity (similarity 0.79)
• Well-founded trust is a construct to build, reproduce, and repair, seldom achieved (similarity 0.79)
• Political legitimacy requires free speech, association, and representation (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Power cannot self-realize but depends on societal-structural conditions for legitimacy #corroborates (0.85)
• Political trust rests on small-group solidarity amid complex indeterminacy #expands (0.80) — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 130
• Cohesion and trust check government power, not merely establish social order #expands (0.78)
• Trust requires the possibility of revising one’s beliefs about the trusted. #expands (0.78)
• Institutions enabling safe cooperation must precede trustworthiness, which precedes trust #complicates (0.78)
• Trust in government is trust in capacity, unlike interpersonal trust #qualifies (0.75)
• Trust grows out of the specific relationship between the parties #expands (0.75)
• Declining trust in government reflects trustworthiness, not citizen psychology #responds-to (0.75) — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 732
• Trust is a small-scale phenomenon that institutions must replace to enable large-scale cooperation #expands (0.72)
• Trust can be deliberately created by fabricating distrust #complicates (0.72) — Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking Cooperative…, 1666
• Organizations require the truster to retain a modicum of distrust #qualifies (0.72)
• Trust in persons and things sustains ontological security. #expands (0.72) — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 225