Five years ago, on March 22, 2020, the German government imposed the first lockdown to contain the coronavirus pandemic. What began as a two-week measure developed into a long-lasting crisis with contact restrictions, curfews and closed schools and daycare centers. In the three years of the pandemic that followed, people's political confidence in Germany also changed considerably. A recent study by the Leibniz Institute for Educational Trajectories (LIfBi) shows: While trust in political institutions rose particularly sharply in the first year of the crisis, it fell again as the crisis progressed - with long-term consequences. Trust in the police and print media also fell and later failed to return to pre-pandemic levels.
The study, which is based on data from the National Educational Panel Study (NEPS), shows that Germany experienced a rally-around-the-flag effect in the first year of the pandemic: average political trust rose from 2.37 to 2.55 on a scale of 1 (very little trust) to 4 (very high trust) at the beginning of the crisis, before falling again in the second year of the pandemic. At the beginning of the pandemic, core state institutions such as the federal government and the Bundestag in particular received a trust bonus.
"Times of crisis often lead to a short-term strengthening of political trust in the state. However, the longer a crisis lasts and the greater the social and economic burdens become, the more likely this effect is to be reversed. This can be clearly seen in the fact that trust in the German government and Bundestag falls in the second year of the pandemic," explains project manager Prof. Dr. Gundula Zoch.
Crisis of trust in the media
But it was not just state institutions that were affected. Political trust not only includes trust in the government and parliament, but also in the police, the Federal Constitutional Court, the EU and the media. For the second year of the pandemic, the study also shows a significant loss of trust among people in various types of media: trust in social media in particular - which was already the lowest - fell sharply. Television and newspapers were also slightly less trusted. In 2023, the average level of trust in the media had roughly returned to its original level. Social media recorded strong growth and enjoyed more trust at the end of the crisis than at the beginning. However, trust in the print media did not return to pre-crisis levels in 2023.
"Our analysis shows that political trust fluctuated greatly during the pandemic. What is particularly critical is that while trust in television and social media recovered, trust in the established print media remained permanently weakened," says project team member Dr. Steffen Wamsler.
Police lose popularity
The police, who played a central role in enforcing infection control measures during the pandemic, also suffered a lasting loss of trust over the course of the crisis. While they were considered one of the most trustworthy institutions before the pandemic, their trust rating fell sharply in the second year of the pandemic and did not return to pre-crisis levels later on. One possible explanation for this is that the population became increasingly critical of the police's implementation of measures such as contact restrictions, assembly bans and curfews.
The long-term dangers of lost trust
The study makes it clear that political trust is particularly fragile in times of crisis - and that lost trust takes time to rebuild after a crisis. Long-term stable trust in political institutions, but also in the media, is essential for the functioning of a democracy. If this erodes, the functioning of the government can be severely impaired, for example if the legitimacy of its decisions or the election itself is called into question. A lack of political trust is also a key trigger for the spread of conspiracy narratives, which can damage both social coexistence and the political system.
The study and its data
The study is based on data from 7,008 respondents who were asked about their political trust five times between 2017 and 2023 as part of the adult starting cohort of the National Educational Panel Study (NEPS), as well as statistical data from 353 districts in Germany. The analysis takes into account both individual and regional factors such as incidence rates, infection control measures, changes in work and family life and pandemic-related stress factors. The results were calculated using longitudinal regression models in order to trace individual changes in political trust and factors influencing it over the entire course of the crisis.
The study was conducted as part of the PEPP-COV project (Political attitudes and political participation in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic), which is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research. It examines the change in political attitudes and the associated development of social and political participation as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
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