Unraveling the Trust Crisis: Do Presidents Keep Their Promises?

• In Event: Volatility and Policy-Making

Abstract

Do pre- and post-election issues related to the democratic crisis - as well as pledges stemming from them - lead to any outcomes? For Macron in France as for Trump in the United States, the democratic crisis was central to their campaign. Their takeover was perceived as a window of opportunity to renovate democracy and make existing institutions better and more representative. Various laws related to these pledges were passed. However, the plurality and ambiguity of their rhetoric and promises led to a variety of outcomes that have received little attention. Besides, if pledges are specific, their implementation remains somewhat vague. Since the “trust crisis” is not recent, this paper will also examine B. Obama in the US and Hollande in France, to study 4 trajectories.
The literature has largely captured a decline in democracies’ support, including in stable and prosperous democratic regimes (Mounk and Foa, 2016). A significant part of the research published in recent years using randomized controlled trials has attempted to capture factors acting downward on this democratic support (Mazepus and Toshkov, 2022). A notable part of this research focuses on cues and polarization (Carey et al., 2022). Another part is interested in rhetoric, notably with President Donald Trump (Berlinski et al. 2021; Clayton et al. 2021). Government performance has been an important part of literature using surveys to explain support for democracy (Carlin and Singer 2011; Magalhaes 2014; Kriekhaus et al. 2014)
This topic is therefore central: are the promises made by Presidents to improve trust and democracy kept? This remains largely under-studied from the sociology of public action’s angle. This issue is often present during presidential campaigns, so presidential takeovers seem to be a fitting field to study this issue.
We will first consider the literature on pledges (Bouillaud, Guinaudeau and Persico, 2017). The achievements - laws passed or executive actions - are not 100% what was promised. However, if crises impact policies, certain pledges should be translated into specific laws.
We will also carefully examine presidential rhetoric: if the literature has shown that it has relatively little effect on the media or public opinion, it is a good indicator of the cognitive framing of an issue. Rhetoric is essential to explain political behavior: it provides a narrative that tells actors what is important and mobilizes their behavior towards specific goals.
Two hypotheses are suggested to explain the trajectory of pledges related to this trust crisis. First of all, the salience of specific issues in speeches could result in more public visibility and therefore, their enactment. The second hypothesis is that pledges would be kept depending on their “categories”. Symbolic and general “trust reforms” would be easier to implement than institutional changes, such as “changing the system” by reducing the number of member of parliaments (France).
Using pre- and post-election speeches, along with a list of achievements, our first results indicate that Presidents do not seem to prioritize the democratic crisis, or rather that their action is mainly structured around fulfilling their promises overall, not changing how democratic life functions.

Author

• Nicolas Audignon, Université Paris-Panthéon-Assas