Part of the system or puppets on a string? : research on the framing of different types institutional distrust

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Part of the System or Puppets on a String?

Research on the framing of different types institutional distrust

Master’s Thesis Sociology Track: Social Problems, Social Policy

Tim van Dijk 10268588

Supervisor: Kobe de Keere Second reader: Jan Willem Duyvendak

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1 New ideas are going to have to break through That depends on you That depends on people who sit at the side-line, that have to make a choice Or else, be devoured So when you go home and do your analysis At the end of the day, that’s the question, also for you

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Abstract

This thesis contains a qualitative study of different types of institutional trust. It contributes to the scientific debate on this topic, since contemporary studies are predominantly quantitative. Within the theoretical frameworks on institutional distrust, three discourses can be distinguished. First, using postmodern discourse, one is critical towards institutions because they claim to present an objective ‘truth’, whilst truth is considered to be subjective and dependent of the context it is presented in, as for instance Baudrillard (1994) and Lyotard (1984) argue. Subsequently, using reflexive discourse, following theories of Beck (1996) and Giddens (1990), one is distrustful towards institutions because modern society is increasingly globalized and individualized, thus people have to be reflexive of their own knowledge and handle the increased (environmental) risks that institutions bring forth. Furthermore, using anomic discourse, one is distrusting towards institutions from feelings of resentment, societal discontent and social- and cultural malaise (Elchardus & de Keere, 2012). This research attempts to explain which discourses are used amongst distrustful individuals and what type of narratives can be distinguished in this process. Fifteen respondents were interviewed using semi-structured interviews, which were analysed thematically using Atlas.ti. Two dominant narratives were distinguished: a conspiracy narrative, where a malevolent elite controls the world and will pursue to remain in power and a system narrative, where a dense system of collaborating institutions is becoming increasingly uncontrollable. However, all three types of discourse were, to a greater or lesser extent, used in both narratives.

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Acknowledgements

Before you lies my graduate thesis “Part of the System or Puppets on a String?”, as part of the sociology master’s ‘Social Problems, Social Policy’. It has been a great experience and a great pleasure to delve into such an interesting and current issue. Through the process of writing this thesis, I have had support of several people who I would like to thank. First, I want to thank my supervisor, Kobe de Keere, for his guidance and counselling from start to finish and my second reader, Jan-Willem Duyvendak for his valuable time. Furthermore, I would like to thanks my friends, family and my girlfriend for their support and for sharing their thoughts on the subject. Conclusively, I would like to thank all the respondents that were involved for their time, their receptivity and their interesting stories, for without them, writing this thesis would not have been possible.

Tim van Dijk 10-07-2017

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1. Introduction

On 16th_{November 2016, Oxford Dictionaries revealed ‘Post-truth’ to be the ‘Word of the Year’}

(oxforddictionairies.com, 2016). Post-truth is defined here as “Relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief” (ibid.). Although the term was first coined in 1992, it gained a lot of attention since 2015, often used in relation to ‘post-truth politics’ or ‘post-truth society’. Two events in which this was apparent are the Brexit and the election of Donald Trump, two political processes in which reasoning through emotions is reported to be superior to reasoning through facts (ibid.). The emergence of the post-truth narrative is an example of how some people are not willing to believe everything politicians say and are more inclined to follow their feeling. The notion of a ‘gut feeling’, is a popular one in the reports about (primarily) voters of right-wing, populist parties (Strenger, 2016; the Economist, 2016). An overarching theme seems to be that one should not be trusting a message from an authoritative institution solely because of the hierarchical structure. This feeling of distrust expands, however, further than politics and is apparent in media, scientific and governmental institutions (Achterberg et al., 2015; Braithwaite & Levi, 1998; De Keere, 2010).

The notion that an authoritative, hierarchical institution is able to provide a trustworthy, singular and objective truth, is disputed many times over throughout history. Within sociological discourse, this is often denominated as ‘counter-culture’, a subculture that willingly deviates from the dominant culture or the ‘mainstream’ culture (e.g. Roszak, 1969; Yinger, 1960). One very popular anti-establishment movement has been the punk movement in the seventies and eighties, considering the popularity of the Sex Pistols’ critique of society and authority from an anarchistic perspective. It is interesting to see that their frontman, Johnny Rotten, has called Donald Trump a “possible friend” and ‘perhaps a “political Sex Pistol”’ (Berman, 2017). The anti-establishment narrative that both men have adopted therefore seems to range from right-wing politics to anarchists. Their trust in certain institutions has diminished, leading them to question authoritative institutions. For instance, one of the issues where Trump seems to defy the authority of scientific institutions is on the topic of environmental issues. With the election of Donald Trump in the United States, there is now a head of a world leading state that openly questions whether the human impact on climate change is real (Goode, 2016). There is a tremendous amount of information to be found on the internet, enforcing every possible stance on this subject, from the severity of environmental issues through human impact to the lack of human impact on these issues and even to the complete denial of these issues (Delingpole, 2016; Goode, 2016; Pearce, 2013).

It is argued that the presence of all the contradictory information makes it increasingly harder for people to know what is real and what is not, leading to the point where they simply do not trust anything anymore. This is apparent in the notion of ‘existential anxiety’, “feelings of hurt, puzzlement, and betrayal, together with suspicion and hostility” (Giddens, 1990: 98). However, there is another side to the feelings of institutional distrust. Some research shows that the group that primarily has low scientific trust are lower educated, ‘anomic’ individuals, people that feel discontent in and disconnected from society (De Keere, 2010). The latest report on trust by the CBS (2017), the Dutch Central Bureau of Statistics, also shows that trust in political institutions is higher amongst higher educated people. As I will elaborate on later, there is a lot of quantitative data on institutional trust, relating it to education, gender and age. However, little has been written on the reasons why those feelings of distrust came to be and how these individuals themselves talk about their own reasons not to trust certain institutions.

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7 Within this research, I will try to gain an in-depth understanding in the different types of institutional distrust and the different discourse that people use when talking about their (dis)trust towards several institutions. First, I will elaborate on the theoretical framework, which contains the classic and contemporary theories on which this research is based. Institutional trust is the primary concept throughout the research and consists largely, but not solely, of two fields that are often separately studied: trust in governments and trust in science. However, within popular discourse, media is also often mentioned as a distrustful institution, in combination with ‘mainstream’ culture. In the following section I will start by illustrating how several different discourses can be used to frame institutional distrust. First, I will elaborate on postmodern theories that explain a societal tendency regarding the value of 'objective truth', which may influence a lack of institutional trust. Subsequently, I will elaborate on two other discourses on institutional distrust: the 'reflexive' and the 'anomic' discourse. Conclusively, I will elaborate on how climate change is an interesting case relating to institutional trust, because institutions like media, science and governments are involved.

As mentioned earlier, there is a lot of quantitative research on the causes and effects of institutional trust. For instance, the CBS releases a report almost every year with the fluctuations of trust in other people, the army, politics, the police, banks, etc. Other variables that are used are often ethnicity, gender, education and age. This provides an interesting framework of the demographics of institutional trust. Within the theoretical framework of this research, other researches are mentioned that draw on quantitative data to provide insight in how, for instance, scientific trust is to be explained. These useful studies have been quite important in setting up this research, since they provide relevant information and data, for instance on which types of distrustful people can be distinguished. However, I became increasingly interested in the stories behind the data. It seemed logical to me that people that do not trust certain institutions must have, at least from their perspectives, valid reasons to do so. My personal interest (which will be reflected upon in the chapter 9) was also sparked by the societal tendencies of the ‘gap between citizens and politics’ that has been covered quite extensively in the national media in the Netherlands in light of the elections in 2017. This research therefore contributes to a more thorough understanding of institutional distrust in the Netherlands, expanding on societal occurrences as well as scientific discourse.

In order to research these topics, I have conducted semi-structured interviews with members of specific anti-establishment Facebook groups. These interviews have provided valuable data which will be analysed in the light of the mentioned theoretical framework. Conclusively, this analysis will provide an answer to the main question of this research: ‘How are different types of institutional distrust framed?’

To answer this main question, I will first answer the following sub-questions throughout the research: ‘Which factors play a role in the framing of distrust in different institutions?’ and ‘How do attitudes towards environmental issues relate to institutional trust?’

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2. Theoretical framework

2.1 Different types of discourse

Within the scientific discourse on institutional trust, there are three possible approaches to the phenomenon of distrust. The first approach would be the ‘postmodern’ approach, redefining concepts like ‘truth’ and ‘reality’ as subjective and distorted. The second approach entails the reflexive discourse, where one critically assesses certain institutions, for instance because the competence of these institutions is considered as waning. Lastly, the ‘anomic’ discourse will be portrayed. From this perspective, institutions are distrusted from feelings of resentment or societal discontent (De Keere, 2010). Feelings of anomie can arise for a variety of reasons, predominantly because of social conditions, i.e. the lack of a shared morality (Ritzer, 2012). First, ‘postmodern’ discourse will be explained.

2.1.1 Postmodern discourse

From a postmodern perspective, an individual appears to reject a form of hegemonic knowledge and authority, which traditionally lie at scientific and governmental institutions. The questioning of this hegemonic model is central in a variety of postmodern theories, which are crucial in understanding where this distrust in institutions may be coming from. In ‘Simulacra and Similation’, Baudrillard states that “we live in a world where there is more and more information, and less and less meaning.” (1994: 55). Through the omnipresence of depictions of what is ‘supposed to be’ reality, repeated time and time again, a condition is created that has no relation to reality anymore: a ‘pure simulacrum’. This happens gradually over time, with every depiction of a reality. A first (often slightly distorted) depiction of reality is perceived as real, and this new reality is in turn depicted and subsequently interpreted as a new reality once more, and so on. This is a process in which Baudrillard distinguishes four phases: in the first, reality is being depicted in the most accurate way; in the second, the reality is already deformed, a ‘masked’ reality; in the third, the initial depiction of reality is gone, and the new depiction is in turn masking the absence of the reality; in the final stage, all connection with reality is gone and the depiction is now a ‘full simulacrum’ (ibid.: 6). One can imagine such a process through the depiction of certain issues through media, films and documentaries, where certain images about a subject are repeated so many times, that a depiction of that subject without that specific image are deemed less credible.

The postmodern perspective assumes that when different depictions of the same reality are reinforced time and time again, a situation may arise where two different simulacra are claiming to represent the same reality. It becomes very hard, if not impossible, for an individual to distinguish that what is real from a simulacra and this distorts the concept of an objective ‘truth’. For example, a short search on different news websites shows that very deviating reports can be found on whether climate change is a problem (BBC, 2016; Nelson, 2017) or a hoax (Delingpole, 2016; Fox News, 2017). Since reality is no longer a singular concept, Baudrillard argues that people start to form their own opinion on reality, e.g. through nostalgia, lived experience and anxiety (1995: 6) and not blindly following an information stream that is provided by institutions like the government or the media. The state in which one can no longer distinguish what is real from a simulacrum, is what Baudrillard calls the ‘hyperreality’, where there is only “a real without origin or reality” (ibid.: 3).

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9 Considering the current ‘post-truth’ society as a form of hyperreality, it may be no surprise that people start to question the authority and credibility of certain institutions. Turning, again, to the concept of climate change, there are two distinct ‘extremes’ in the public debate: environmentalists and climate-deniers. Both of these camps have created their own hyperreality, where all from of ‘credible’ knowledge is endorsing their point of view. It then becomes very difficult for an individual to form its own opinion on the matter, because of the absence of credible, objective information. As said, there simply does not exist a singular form of knowledge. A similar argument is made by Lyotard (1984), who argues from what he denominates a ‘postmodern’ perspective, that the usage of ‘meta-narratives’ is aged. What he calls ‘modern’ philosophy, is a discourse that creates a legitimation of modern science, a meta-narrative (Ibid.: xxiii). These modern meta-narratives are in constant search for the ‘truth’ and thus, according to Lyotard, not applicable anymore in a society where technological advancements constantly alter this truth. The emergence of Facebook as a source for news is an example of technological advancement that alters the distribution of news. As an increasing number of users get their news through Facebook (Barthel et al., 2016), the coverage of ‘fake news’, which was a hotly debated topic around the presidential election in the United States, grows as well (Connolly et al., 2016). This led to the initiative to flag ‘disputed news’ on Facebook in co-operation with the Dutch news website Nu.nl (nu.nl, 2017). However, alternative news media have criticized this, because the mainstream media would then be in charge of which sources should be deemed credible (Pauwnieuws.nl, 2017). This is a prime example of how technological advancements create a climate in which one cannot judge which news item is real and which is not. There is then, according to Lyotard (1984), no singular form of ‘ universal truth’ anymore (if there had ever been such a thing), that is worth striving towards. Thus, the notion of ‘fake news’ would be disregarded in postmodern discourse, since the boundaries between truth and falsehood have faded. Instead, there are ‘language games’, where there is an endless combination of narratives to either reject or accept. People then create their own ideas about which narrative to accept and which narrative to reject.

As shown, the theories of Baudrillard (1994) and Lyotard (1984) are imagining a society where individuals are overwhelmed by a flood of information, unable to distinguish truth from falsehood. Because of this overwhelming, one creates a reality where the notion of an objective truth does not play a central role, therefore diminishing the trust in institutions that claim to present such a truth. It is then presumed than an opinion is created by experience, emotions and a weighing if different realities. In short, they assume a society of individuals that choose their own reality, rather than simply accepting institutions that tell them what is true and what is false. This would entail that an individual using a postmodern discourse to frame its institutional distrust would weigh every narrative on a single topic and choose the one that seems most fitting, based on emotion, logic and lived experience, rather than disregarding a single institution entirely.

2.1.2 Reflexive discourse

The theories presented by Baudrillard and Lyotard are, a perspective that can be disputed. As a reaction on postmodern theory, the notion of the ‘reflexive modernity’ was coined (Beck et al., 1994). Within the reflexive modernization theory, the assumption is made that well-educated members of society are more likely to assess traditional institutions critically (Achterberg et al., 2015), because they have more knowledge about the functioning of these institutions. Increasing globalization and individualization have caused the individual to become responsible for its own life trajectory (Giddens, 1990). Strong community ties have decreased and thus the ‘ontological security’ has decreased as well. As Giddens puts it: “On the other side of what might appear to be quite trivial aspects of day-to-day

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10 action and discourse, chaos lurks. And this chaos is not just disorganisation, but the loss of a sense of the very reality of things and of other persons.” (1991: 36). The risk of such chaos and disorganization is increasingly present in modern society. Modernity is described as a ‘juggernaut’, endlessly moving forward but never truly under control of humans (Ibid.). Thus, an individual must cope with these increased risks, forming a reflexive identity, or a ‘self’, capable of handling these risks. The ‘self’, thus becomes a ‘reflexive project’, justifying (life)choices on knowledge and through rationality (Ibid.). Beside this knowledge about institutions, individuals have more freedom to question their own situation (De Keere, 2010). The questioning of one’s own situation is what can be denominated as ‘moral relativism’: “a critical stance toward, or even a rejection of, traditional ways of thinking, feeling, and acting.” (Achterberg et al., 2015: 3). Moral relativism, or ‘cultural progressiveness’, also creates an opening for doubt and distrust, not only towards traditional institutions, but also towards new institutions. The reflexive individual does not fear to question the legitimacy of scientific institutions, which claimed to proclaim the ‘truth’ (De Keere, 2010). The most prominent difference with the postmodern perspective is exactly this notion of ‘truth’. Whereas within postmodern discourse objective truth is considered obsolete and subjective, within reflexive discourse, truth is something worth striving for through a critical and investigating attitude.

Another reason why people might distrust traditional institutions, are the rapid developments in science and technology. This affects a society as a whole, creating greater wealth and advancements in society, but also creating more risks. The increased risks in modern society is what Beck describes as the ‘Risk society’ (1996). He primarily refers to the threat of nuclear energy and the risks that it generates, which are not restricted to time (effects of a nuclear disaster could be intergenerational) or place (a single disaster could affect a larger area) and are thus a new phenomenon (Ritzer, 2012: 557). Furthermore, whereas the upper class in society were mostly invulnerable to the risks of early modernity, risks in the ‘advanced’ modernity transcend class and hit all members of society equally as hard (ibid.) The assessment of these risks and the institutions that cause these risks made the individuals more critical and reflexive. For instance, Beck takes on a critical stance towards science, calling it the “global contamination of people and nature” (Beck in: Ritzer, 2012: 558). So called ‘sub-political’ institutions (companies, science) primarily cause these major risk, therefor diminishing the power and the capability of the government to answer to these risks. The institutions that contribute to climate change “produce and legitimate hazards which they cannot control” (Beck, 1996: 27), therefore the issue of climate change is, according to Beck, “not at all a problem of the world surrounding us – not a so-called ‘environmental problem’ – but a far reaching institutional crisis of industrial society itself” (1996: 32). In the dialectal tradition that Beck uses, advanced modernity creates both these new risks, as a reflexive individual, critical towards both itself and institutions. Only this reflexive individual will thus be aware of these new risks in society and might be able to cope with them accordingly.

2.1.3 Anomic discourse

Within the studies on scientific trust, Achterberg et al. (2015) and De Keere (2010) did not find evidence that supported the claim that the ‘rise’ of the reflexive individual has led to an increase of distrust in scientific institutions. They argue that moral relativism is rather the reason why people do not feel threatened by these institutions. Instead, it were respondents that feel like institutions are not trustworthy, deriving from feelings of resentment and discontent, scientifically summarized as ‘anomie’. Anomie is a concept coined by Emile Durkheim, describing a state in which “society’s influence is lacking in the basically individual passions, thus leaving them without a check-rein” (2005:

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11 219). According to Durkheim, the individual is formed through the society it lives in. Each society is built upon a ‘collective conscience’, a set of rules, norms and values that are shared throughout society, making sure an individual can understand and give meaning to everyday encounters. When an institutional change occurs, some individuals can no longer trust upon their previous knowledge about how society is organized. Such an institutional change comes from a change in the ‘public conscience’, for without it, the change wouldn’t occur at all. Durkheim states, for instance, that legislative acts will never occur without a certain societal movement that precedes it (ibid.: 236). However, he argues that anomie is, to some extent, omnipresent in modern society and that uncertain conditions such as societal and economic crises instigate anomic tendencies (Ritzer, 2012).

According to Robert Merton, anomie occurs when societal structures prevent individuals to achieve certain goals and adopt certain values, or as he denominates it, an “imperfect coordination between goals and means” (Merton, 1968: 214). Within the culture of a society, there are certain expectations that its citizens are inclined to live up to. However, the social conditions in that society do not always provide the individual with the means to live up to the cultural expectations. Therefore, Merton argues, deviant behaviour may occur in order to achieve the cultural goals. For instance, one may become a drug dealer in order to achieve a certain respected economic status (Ritzer, 2012). This type of behaviour is what Merton would call ‘Innovation’, as one of five types of behaviour that can occur when one is confronted with anomie. Other ways to adapt to anomie are conformity (keep striving for the cultural goals using the structural handhelds), Ritualism (lowering ones goals, thus accepting a ‘lower’ place in society), Retreatism (abandoning cultural goals as well as the institutionalized practices to obtain those goals) and Rebellion (striving to replace both the goals and the means to achieve them) (Merton, 1968: 195-209). Thus, the individual has to cope with its feelings of anomie accordingly. Whereas this paragraph has focussed on the structural and cultural causes for anomie, he next paragraph will focus on the anomic individual.

As mentioned above, an anomic state is one where there is no recognition in society anymore for an individual, no feeling of belonging and no collective conscience to identify with. It is strongly associated with societal discontent and feelings of nostalgia (De Keere, 2010; Achterberg et al., 2015; Achterberg 2015). People who are anomic are overall more likely to distrust scientific institutions (ibid.) and there is strong reason to assume that the same goes for governmental institutions (Achterberg, 2015; Elchardus and De Keere, 2013). Anomie is then a strong predictor for institutional distrust because “those who are anomic feel threatened by modern institutions due to their inability to grasp and influence these impersonal, meaningless social forces” (Achterberg et al., 2015: 4). The anomic individual is most likely to be a ‘loser of modernity’ (De Keere, 2010), someone that can’t cope with, and does not profit from, all the rapid changes in modern society. Within this discourse, what was deemed valuable is lost, causing feelings of powerlessness and uncertainty. It may then be not so strange that these people have strong feelings of nostalgia and may use a narrative containing feelings of cultural malaise and the decline of traditional values. It is, then, safe to assume that anomic discourse is most likely to contain pessimistic future prospects (Ibid.: 39)

Anomie can cause an individual to change their ideas about certain societal tendencies. For instance, feelings of anomie can cause a person to feel unsafe in society (Elchardus, de Groof & Smits, 2005: 50). Those feelings can, in turn, be a projection of the threat of criminality and the risk of becoming a victim. It is a rational process of explaining their own feelings of anomie. Personal struggles can contribute to the overall feelings of discomfort in and discontent about society. These personal experiences can thus influence the feelings of safety in one’s own living environment (Ibid.). Therefore,

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12 It is to be expected that people that adopt a more anomic narrative, will most likely use a discourse where fear and anxiety of potential threats to them or their society play a substantive role.

Where fear of a potentially unknown threat plays a role, conspiracies thrive. In the next paragraph, the discourse on conspiracies and their link to postmodernism, reflexivity and anomie will be explained.

2.2 Conspiracies

The term ‘conspiracy theory’ is a complex one. In general, these theories are deemed to be untrue and the people that believe in them are stigmatized, for instance in the media. It is argued that people that believe in conspiracy theories are either “litteraly mad or mentally ill” or possess traits like “dogmatism, gullibility and close mindedness” (Mortimer, 2015). However, there are many conspiracy theories that are supported by exorbitant numbers of people. For instance, 85 to 90% of the American people believe in the popular conspiracy theory that John F. Kennedy’s murder was not solely the endeavour of Lee Harvey Oswald (Abalakina-Paap et al., 1999). In the Netherlands, a similar conspiracy exists around the murder of Pim Fortuyn, with the perpetrators ranging from an alliance between radical leftists and Muslims to the CIA (Aupers, 2002). But what makes a conspiracy really a conspiracy? Within the ‘conspiracy’ discourse, a popular conception is that the CIA coined the term ‘conspiracy theory’ in 1967, in order to discredit anyone that critiques the dominant and ‘official’ narrative (Washington, 2015). Subsequently, ‘conspiracy theory’ is a value-laden term, which needs some conceptualisation.

Within this research, a conceivably more neutral definition of ‘conspiracy’ is used. A conspiracy entails that “multiple actors [are] working together in secret to achieve hidden goals that are perceived to be unlawful or malevolent” (Abalakina-Paap et al., 1999). The notion that a government or another institution is involved in such a conspiracy may subsequently affect the level of trust that one places in this institution, since people don’t believe that it works in their best interest and instead has questionable alternate intentions. As said, many researchers have condemned conspiracies as irrational and a poor attempt to understand reality. However, as Aupers puts it: “Determining what is ‘rational’ and what is not; what is sane and insane; good and bad, after all, cannot and should not play a role in the study of cultural meaning”.

There are different approaches on why people believe in conspiracies. It is argued that in late-modernity, the difference between what is ‘true’ and what is ‘false’ is no longer a black-and-white argument. The notion that something is either rational or irrational, real science or conspiracy, is obsolete (Aupers, 2002). When scientific truth is no longer superior to other forms of knowledge, but rather a single narrative within the earlier mentioned ‘language games’, conspiracy theories may be just as true as scientific research, when assessed from a postmodern perspective (Aupers, 2012). Aupers (2002: 321) refers to Baudrillard’s simulacra, applicating it to the common conception that bureaucracy is becoming increasingly uncontrollable and self-regulating, giving rise to the question ‘Who’s in charge?’. This questioning of official institutions is also reflected in the earlier mentioned theories of Beck and Giddens, concerning the ‘risk society’. Conspiracies would then be regarded as “crystallized manifestations of distrust in scientific knowledge and the increasing individualisation in social, economic and technological systems.” (Aupers, 2002: 324). Within the risk society, the fear for these institutions and their possible failures would not be easily proven to be irrational or factually wrong.

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13 However, other research claims that a relation exists between believing in conspiracies, low levels of trust and high levels of anomie (Abalakina-Paap et al., 1999; Goertzel, 1994). People that have the feeling that they have been victimized are likely to attempt to comprehend their own situation. Conspiracy theories can provide anomic people with an ´enemy´ that they can blame for their personal distress (Abalakina-Paap et al., 1999). Furthermore, people can feel like society can be overwhelming. Geo-political events and a globalized, increasingly complex world can make people feel powerless. Conspiracy theories may then be an easy way to explain and accept these complex structures (ibid.).

Conspiracies are only one of many ways to understand the world one lives in. They are embedded in the cultural discourse of a society and based on societal trends. However, it is a question of cultural praxis whether one chooses to use conspiracy theories to explain societal phenomena. It depends on what Swidler denominated as the ‘cultural tool-kit’, consisting of “symbols, stories, rituals, and world-views, which people may use in varying configurations to solve different kinds of problems” (1986: 273). It affects how within groups or societies “moods and motivations, ways of organizing experience and evaluating reality, modes of regulating conduct, and ways of forming social bonds” are created (Ibid: 284). Thus, within specific groups, conspiracies might be quite popular. However, when in other groups, institutional distrust may be framed from an entirely different perspective. Furthermore, it will be interesting to see whether the different types of discourse relate to different narratives on distrust.

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3. Methodology

As mentioned above, the primary research question I will strive to answer is ‘How are different types of institutional distrust framed?’. This research is conducted using a qualitative approach, because a the contemporary discussion on institutional trust is lacking a thorough understanding of the point of view of the distrusting individuals. This implies that the data will consist of information about the opinion of respondents and their point of view on where their opinions originated from. I have gathered this information through fifteen structured interviews. Through the use of semi-structured interviews, I was able to gain similar information about each respondent, by asking the same questions. Nonetheless, there remained enough room for probing, i.e. exploring underlying thoughts. However, the downside to semi-structured interviews is that in-depth information is easier to receive from respondents that are more confident in the interview. I therefore had to be attentive to the respondent, judging whether or not he/ she was comfortable sharing his/ her thoughts and, when necessary, asking a few more subtle questions about the same subject in order to collect the right amount of information.

3.1 Sampling and gaining access

To have adequate data deriving from the interviews, the respondents are gathered through purposive sampling. This means that I have actively selected respondents with institutional distrust, namely the member of Facebook groups that revolves around ‘Civil disobedience’, implying that the members of the group are defying the authority the government has over them. Although gender does not seem to affect the level of institutional trust and the effect of age is disputed (Achterberg, 2014; De Keere, 2010), I have aspired to approach a sample group that is equally distributed among age and gender, in order to get a broad view of the sample. However, it was beyond my control who answered to the messages and thus the final group of respondents is quite skewed in terms of age and gender, resulting in eleven male respondents and only four female respondents. There will be elaborated on the relation between gender and distrust later on. With respect to age, most (i.e. ten) respondents are between 40 – 60 years old. One respondents is older than 60 and four are between 20- 30 years old. Whether age is a factor in the framing of distrust, will also be elaborated on later.

In order to approach the respondents, I have gained access to a closed Facebook group revolving around the concept of civil disobedience, by answering three questions. This selection criterion is one that is developed independent of this research and is therefore not manipulated by me. Through the fact that the members of the group all had to answer these questions, it is safe to consider that they share a certain sceptical attitude towards institutions and primarily the government. The three questions were: “Are you aware that the state is fundamentally violating our human rights? That when we acknowledge and finance the state we are responsible for the violation of human rights of our family and countrymen”, “Are states and religions that encourage the violation of human rights criminal?” and “When you violate human rights or encourage the violation of human rights, should you be brought before a court? For example a people’s court?”. I answered all these questions affirmative, although I did put in my own opinion, in order to nuance the messages and not start the relationship with the respondents under false premises. This particular Facebook group fluctuate around the 3.500 members and primarily states that the individual and the state never agreed on a collaboration and thus the state doesn’t have formal power over them. Furthermore, a recurring notion is that state and religion are not there to serve the individuals within a society. The description of the page is the following:

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15 “[This page] wants our human rights to be no longer subject to certain conditions. The government and the banks conspired to take away the wealth that we create with our labour. The government is no longer there for us. They believe that we should be there for the economy. But that’s not what I’ve agreed upon... even worse, there is no document that shows a collaboration between me and the state where two signatures are signed. Civil disobedience assumes a moral and ethical principle that is present in every human being. Religions and politics disregard these principles as they are the biggest violators of our moral and ethical awareness. We must return to the connection with nature. The only laws that are truly laws are found in nature and cannot be subject to certain conditions.” (my translation)

Within this description, the government is disregarded entirely, not only the messages that come from this institution. Furthermore, it shows that one has to be knowledgeable of the acts of the government, already showing signs of both anomie and reflexivity, which will be elaborated on later.

Through likes and comments on posts on the Facebook page, I have emerged myself in the group. I started sending more messages to people who were actively commenting and/ or posting on the page. In every message, I have been open about the intentions, about my position as researcher and the subject of the research. After several interviews and quite a large amount of messages, the administrator of the group, Roel approached me. He was somewhat sceptic, but after chatting with him via Facebook, he agreed to an interview via Skype, since he does not live in the Netherlands. This method of interviewing is used two times more, because respondents lived to far away or had little time for an interview. Thus, besides the twelve face-to-face interviews, I did three interviews via Skype and one via an e-mailed questionnaire. This particular respondent was on a holiday and didn’t want to spent time skyping, so we had contact via e-mail. The answers to the questionnaire are used as supplementary to the interviews, since they do not contain the same valuable data. There was no room for probing or elaborating on an answer or a question, so the answers were rather short.

3.2 Interviews and analysis

For this research, I have used combination of thematic and narrative analysis, which eventually lead to distinguishing different narratives. This entails a thorough understanding of the source and the meaning of the views of the respondent, distinguishing different themes that are recurring throughout the interviews. I have payed close attention to hints on certain occurrences that may have influenced the opinion of the respondent. A narrative analysis focusses on the story that is being told, the way the story is constructed and the meaning of the story to the respondent (Spencer, Ritchie and O’Connor, 2003). The key in the analysis is to distinguish different themes that eventually lead to the distinction of the used narratives in which the respondent frames its distrust in certain institutions. This could be, for instance, a personal experience that has had a severe impact on the respondents life, causing distrust through experiences with bureaucratic issues or laws that feel unjust. As the focus of the analysis is on the stories that de respondents themselves tell, the questions that are developed beforehand serve primarily as a guideline, not a tight schedule. The initial focus on the reasons why the respondent joined the Facebook group, his/ her reasons to trust or distrust several institutions and how the respondent imagines the Netherlands in ten and in fifty years, if the status quo doesn’t change. Besides that, I ask the respondents how their personal life looks in both ten and fifty years. By asking these questions, it will become clear which reasons the respondent has to trust or distrust institutions and which personal factors play a role in these reasons. It is important to note that the

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16 assumption is made that the respondents answer truthfully and wholesome, as I cannot check whether their stories are factually true or whether they are withholding a part of their life that may have had influence on their feelings of distrust.

After (and during) the process of data collection, I have transcribed and analysed the interviews through the qualitative data software Atlas.ti. Within Atlas.ti, there are multiple possibilities to code, write memo’s, analyse coding patterns, etc. to analyse the gathered data thoroughly. Through transcribing the interviews, certain recurring themes already became clear, so I will have made notes whilst transcribing. An approach that straightens out the superfluous data, is forging the narrative of the respondent in my own words, after transcribing the interview. That way, all ‘side-tracks’ are gone and a clear overview of the respondent’s narrative remains (Hunter, 2010). However, this is only a tool of analysis, not a replacement of the initial transcription. The transcriptions were coded through both value coding and descriptive coding (Saldaña, 2013), implying a focus on value laden excerpts, like notions of anger or discontent, as well as on certain notions on how the respondent describes power structures, certain rules or experiences with institutions. However, these considerations were subject to change, as other focal points were discovered durnig the process of analysing.

After transcribing all the interviews, I constructed a framework of codes, consisting of broader topics like ‘origin of distrust’, ‘conspiracy thinking’ and ‘nostalgic feelings’. Then I created several more detailed codes like ‘distrust in politics’ and ‘reference to childhood’. Thus, I created overview of which broader themes were recurring and which codes were often in combination with this theme, leading to the construction of a distinct narrative.

In the following chapters, the results from the interviews will be presented. In order to gain a clear overview of the data that the respondents have provided, several chapters will each cover a recurring theme, sometimes from one perspective and sometimes several different narratives are covered. These narratives range from topics that I have directly asked the respondents to comment on to topics and explanations for their distrust that the respondents came up with themselves.

3.3 Ethical considerations

Because I am conducting research with actual people, there are ethical considerations that need to be taken into account. The primary focus of the ethical issues is the protection of the respondents, their privacy, which is guaranteed in this research through the use of pseudonyms. Only the age and gender of the respondents are revealed. Moreover, they are aware that the research is eventually published in the UvA online library. This has been agreed upon before the interview, as well as the recording of the interview. All respondents have given permission for recording before the start of the interview. Furthermore, I have taken into account that I am clear about my intentions from the start. As it is important that to not arouse any wrong expectations, I clearly stated in my first message to the potential respondents that I am working on a research on institutional distrust.

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4. The origin of distrust

At some point in the life of every respondent, they started thinking about the sincerity and the authority of (some of the) institutions that they encounter in their daily life. For some people, this may have been only a few years ago, after certain personal or political events. However, others feel like they have been questioning authority for their entire life. In the following section, the recurring themes will be presented first, before analysing them from different perspectives.

4.1 Reference to childhood

When looking at the concept of ‘origin’ from a chronological perspective, it seems reasonable to start with the theme of childhood. In total, there were four respondents that have made references to when they were a child. Some respondents note that they were always curious, even as a child, asking questions about almost anything. Others note that they do not thrive well under any form of authority. However, in most cases, these two appear together in one narrative. The only respondent that didn’t explicitly refer to his own childhood, but did mention a type of anti-authoritative feeling, was Alex (29, male). He notes he has “always been critical towards anything hierarchical, official institutions”. However, he does not refer to his childhood to explain where this critical attitude has originated from. Other respondents note that they feel like they are anti-authoritative ‘by nature’, and that this has shown in their behaviour since childhood. This is apparent in the following excerpts of the interviews:

“Well, from childhood on, I already noticed that a lot of things do not make sense. About how the world is organised. (…) I have a problem, actually, with hierarchy in general. (…)

(…) I do not thrive under authority that I do not deem valuable.” (Mike, 27, male) “Ever since I was young, I have been an admirer of counter-cultures. (…) That’s a little pubescent, rebelling against, but by reading a lot and watching documentaries, you get

more informed” (Simon, 24, male)

“I went to study nursing. (…) An authoritative system, so I couldn’t maintain myself there. (…) It does not fit my personality, you have to let me walk freely. That’s just a

personality trait.” (Rudy, 52, male).

When looking at the first two quoted respondents, their narrative around distrust revolves around the concept of not blindly following authority and finding out themselves whether something is true or not. Within the narrative of the latter respondent, Rudy, there is a lot of emphasis on his ethnical background, being born in Surinam from Javanese ancestry, moving to the Netherlands the age of five or six. When he encountered the first Turkish children, he started asking questions:

“They didn’t speak Dutch. And as a child, I started having questions, you know, I am brown, I talk in another language at home, but I still speak Dutch. (…) So from that

moment on, I started asking questions.”.

Rudy talks about his background and the influence that it has had on his trust in the institutions. He elaborates on his childhood even further, explaining why he particularly distrusts the government and the education system. As a child, he encountered that there was little to find on his ancestry. Only when the colonial archives were released in 1995, he found out that his grandparents did not leave

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18 Java voluntarily. The information that he had gotten as a child, the questions that he had asked, it all appeared to be false. He feels like the educational system and the government have been withholding crucial information from him and many others with him.

“Our grandfathers didn’t want to talk about that, and in school they don’t tell you this. It is nowhere to be found, no, because according to the school books, my grandfather went

voluntarily! (…) So at this point, I already feel like we’re are being screwed over.”

Rudy makes it clear that his personal experiences as a child, his research into his family history, have affected him. As he states, he feels like he’s being screwed by the government and the educational system. His anti-authoritative feelings that are mentioned before, are not a recurring theme in this particular personal struggle he experienced as a child and are primarily related to his choice of career and a description of his personality.

Besides the earlier mentioned respondents, there was another respondent that mentioned his childhood, although in an entirely different manner. Ben (52, male), was talking about the way that people tend to forget about risks when societies prosper, so that his father never showed him how thing really work in society:

“When my father used to tell something, then I presumed that he knew what he was talking about. And I presumed that he thought that wat he said was good for me, and my wellbeing. And I think that he thought that that was the case, but did not notice that

things sometimes go a different way than you think. So I grew up with the idea: ‘my father is voting for the PvdA, so I must do the same’. That’s the way most people in the Netherlands are raised! (…) My father can’t admit that, that he’s been taken the piss out

off, because he doesn’t believe in it. I’m telling him, you are being screwed over my friendly friend! And me too! Because when I was young, I too believed that America was

the land of unlimited opportunities and that the Russians were evil.”

Thus, it differs whether people reflex upon their childhood or see it as a origin for their own distrusting attitude. Ben reflects upon his childhood and even early adult life, whilst Rudy, Mike and Simon mention their anti-authoritative attitude as an explanation for their institutional distrust.

4.2 Encountering institutions

Altogether, ten out of fifteen respondent have mentioned, to a greater or lesser extent, an encounter with institutions in their personal life which has contributed to their distrust in these institutions. However, it is noteworthy that this does not provide evidence that the personal struggles are the sole reason that these respondents distrust certain institution. As will become clear later on, some of the respondents’ origin of distrust lay at both personal encounters, anti-authoritative feelings and/ or discontent with certain political events.

This notion that some form of institutional error(s) has affected their personal life, is recurring amongst several respondents. For instance, there are two respondents who refer to the several crises since 2008 and how it affected them.

“I had my own company and I went bankrupt. That had two reasons: the banking crisis of 2008 and the open borders of Europe. (…) They didn’t compensate me for those open borders. They just screwed me over. They have put me in a lot of costs, a lot of debt. (…)

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19 “I have lost a gigantic sum of money with the housing crisis. The European Union and

Dutch politics are decreasing everything for the people in the middle, which I identify with.” (Ben)

Ben and Roel, as well as Rudy, all blame the institutions for their personal struggles. According to them, large institutional problems, like the mentioned crises, have contributed to their personal issues. However, there are quite a few narratives in which not large-scale crises, but rather bureaucracy and legislation play a part in the originating of feelings of distrust towards institutions. An interesting note is that all four female respondents have these types of trouble with institutions. For instance, Toos (57, female), has been entangled in procedures about her welfare.

“You’re not happy with the government who gets you in trouble, instead of out of it. (…) Because of the bureaucracy and civil servants that don’t communicate. (…) I depended

on welfare at that time and that was cut off. (…) So it has cost me five years of procedures, until a judge said that was unjustified. (…) But the municipality did not agree, so that was the same song all over again. But it’s cost me five to six years of my

life and caused lot of trouble.”

Furthermore, she mentions that partly due bureaucratic errors, she lost a child. The obstetrician made a mistake in the administration:

“So at the moment that I had to go to the hospital, she kept me at home, so I arrived too late to the hospital. (…) Eventually, I had to go to intensive care and the child suffocated

in my belly, so to say. So that became a whole procedure, disciplinary committee, lawyers, well, you don’t really get much out of that.”

As one can probably imagen, Toos describes this as a traumatic experience and one that has had a tremendous impact on her trust in several institutions, primarily ones involving large amounts of bureaucracy.

Another female respondent (Jessica, 47) mentions the issues with her divorce and the bureaucratic procedures that she also got entangled in. Considering her three children, all with one or multiple disabilities, she says she has never been able to work and was thus always dependent of her husband’s income. After her divorce, she had no income and no relevant ‘up to date’ education. This caused her to reach out to several institutions and her experiences have caused her to be distrustful of, in this case, the national government, local initiatives like the district team and insurance agencies:

“Over the last six year, a lot has come on my path and I have found out that things are not as beautifully organised as that you learn in school. (…) When you want something from the state, you can’t get it done. (…) My ex-husband has made these decisions, without my knowing, but I am the victim. (…) So how messed up is that entire situation? A few years later, Jessica won the lottery and got quite a large amount of money. Naturally, she was very happy about this and wanted to secure a future for her children. However, the stumbled upon the judicial system, which, according to her “revolves around money”. The judge tells her that her husband still has a claim on that money, while Jessica says that he doesn’t care for the children, doesn’t live in the house and doesn’t contribute financially. This, too, had impact on the trust that Jessica places in certain institutions.

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20 “Up until today, I am in a lawsuit, you’re settling your divorce, daddy has no contact with

the kids. (…) I have requested him many times to take some more care tasks. (…) But if the father just says about my request ‘I am building my own life’, (…) then I’m just

thinking ‘In what kind of society are we living?”

The narrative that Jessica uses revolves primarily around injustice and a ‘system’ that does not care about her, or citizens in general, but is fixated on money. A similar narrative is utilized by Judith (45, female), who lives in a recreational home, which entails that she owns a house in which she can recreate and stay overnight for 365 days a year, but she cannot live in permanently. Recently, the municipality has started to enforce the rule that people cannot stay there overnight, on grounds that Judith deems ‘unfunded’. With her educational background in law, she feels like she can fight the bureaucratic system. This was the reason that she started a foundation in order to help people that do not “breach the wall” of bureaucracy. Based on her experience with her customers, she feels is too hard to hard to litigate and that procedures are not transparent enough. Therefore, she asked me, “How can you have trust in a government that treats people like this?”, so I asked precisely that question in return. She answers: “I say you can’t.”

This struggle against bureaucracy and the proclaimed is also an important narrative in the interview with Marvin (52, male). Marvin spends at least the first half hour of the interview, explaining in detail what has happened to him and his family. His struggles started in 2013 when the participation law was accepted, forcing him to partake in a trajectory called ‘reintegration on the labour market’. Before the experiences that followed this law, he had a certain image of the Netherlands:

“The image of a society, a political order based on a high amount of mutual trust, decency and the higher you go, the more institutions and people that work there, are professionals you know? So I formally addressed people. (…) If I come before a judge, that’s an authority and the judge looks at all the files with great decency and with

knowledge and expertise. I really believed that.”

However, this point of view drastically turned when he had to follow the reintegration trajectory. The people that he encountered at the UWV, the Dutch welfare institute, told him he had to start at the bottom, that he had no work experience and that he never followed relevant education. Marvin told me that he didn’t agree with this, so he filed a complaint, which lead him to stray from the path that he thinks they want him to follow:

“They want me in the trajectory. Do you understand? The system has its own dynamics and the way that they look at the world and to people. (…) It’s a game of words, you know. That’s how the institutions work, with words. They know that if they throw a lot of

dust [making it difficult on purpose] that people will just take it.”

The narrative that Marvin and Judith both use, revolves around the notion that one has to actively resist against the official statements of certain institutions. They feel like the government does not work for them, but want to control them, put them in a trajectory or, in Judith’s case, out of their house. Only by writing complaint after complaint, one can achieve justice.

As shown in the section above, the majority of the respondents have endured some sort of personal struggle that has severely diminished their trust in certain institutions like the national or European government or the judicial system. However, even when one is not directly harmed by

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21 institutional policies, certain political or societal events can cause people to question authorities and distrust institutions.

4.3 Political and societal events

Seven out of fifteen respondents have mentioned political or societal events to explain their origin of distrust. In some cases, respondents mention a gradual change in society that they did not agree with. The presumed threat of the Islam in the Netherlands and the ‘flood’ of refugees are mentioned six times within this type of argument:

“When the Islam was upcoming, I saw that we, the Dutch, have very little to say in our own country. So I started to look around. Nowadays, with new social media, YouTube and such, so I came across all kinds of people that said, there’s a lot fucking wrong here.”

(Pieter, 59, male)

“It’s pure one big chunk of fear and frustration about Islamisation. And in particular the sharia laws. (…) I wonder, ‘is everyone blind?’. (Wilma, 71, female)

Pieter and Wilma note that their fear of Islam and the gradual change in society has been the primary reason why they started to distrust institutions like the government and the media. Other respondents mentioned a single political decision or a specific incident as something that made them suspicious towards the involved

institutions.

“Ever since the euro was introduced. Since Pim Fortuyn was murdered. I always said: ‘it’s not just that idiot that did it, he had help’. (…) If Fortuyn would’ve risen to power, then the Euro would’ve never been implemented. (…) The euro was 2,20, now its equal to the

dollar. We have debts left and right. The Europhiles need millions, billions per country if they want it to sustain. Even though it is all about to blow. Well, let it blow, I would

celebrate it.” (Bert, 58, male)

Bert, Ben, Wilma and Roel all mention the referendum about the association treaty with the Ukraine as an illustration of how the European Union has too much power over the, in their opinion, weak Dutch government. This opinion about the Dutch government also shows in the topic of healthcare and specifically, elderly care. This is a hotly debated topic in the Netherlands, which four respondents brought up. Two of them referred to a societal tendency and two referred to personal anecdotes:

“My mom was in a nursing home for six years before she passed away. The awful, dehumanizing… (…) And they shove it on the fact that there’s too little certified personnel. But that’s not the case, it’s a combination of rules, rules, rules. Which cause

that nobody can do their job properly.” (Toos)

Additionally, Alex and Pieter only started to look into particular subjects after they were urged to do so by an acquaintance. Pieter notes that it was a friend of his son who introduced him to the concept of ‘chemtrails’, a substance that is said to be released from planes for an unclear reason. In the next chapter, this will be discussed in more detail, since Pieter is not the only one that uses chemtrails in his narrative about distrust towards, particularly, the government. However, preceding that, an analysis of the discussed themes can shed more light in how the different respondents talk about their encounters with untrustworthy institutions.

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22 4.4 Conclusion

In this chapter, the different sources of the respondents’ distrust have been presented. The recurring themes that were used to explain how they first encountered feelings of distrust towards certain institutions have been categorized in three groups: Childhood, encounters with institutions and political and societal events. However, these categories are not mutually exclusive, since respondents can specify that their distrust originated because of multiple reasons. The largest group of respondents, i.e. ten out of fifteen, have said that they have suffered from a personal encounter with one or more institutions, which has influenced their trust in, for instance, the government, the judicial system or the media. A recurring theme is the responsibility of the involved institutions for the personal struggles of the respondent. They say their experiences with these institutions have made them critical and distrustful, because they feel like the institution that should be there to help them, failed to do so. These are traits of a social malaise (Elchardus & De Keere, 2012) and thus of what could be denominated as the ‘anomic individuals’, feeling resentful towards institutions and feeling left out in society.

Subsequently, the second theme that can be distinguished, ‘discontent with political and/ or societal events’, was mentioned by seven respondents. Within this theme, the respondents put themselves at the side-line, watching society from a distance, analysing it and drawing certain conclusions. In the case of these seven respondents, they were worried about what was happening in their society. Generally, the narratives employed a discourse about a societal trend and the political reaction to that trend. However, some respondents identified specific political events as the reason they started to distrust the involved institution. These respondents identify certain threats to society and their way of living, like the threat of Islam or the policy of the European Union. Furthermore, they question the capability of the responsible institutions to react to these threats adequately. However, some respondents already lost their faith in these institutions entirely. This theme therefore holds traits that both fit the reflexive discourse, questioning the authority of the institutions (Beck, 1996), as more anomic discourse described above.

Lastly, there were four respondents that referred to their childhood in order to explain their origin of distrust. Three of those respondents implied that they have always been critical of authority or anti-hierarchical by nature. Their discourse involves a certain critical assessment of any form of authority, whether or not it is deemed justified. Subsequently, statements coming from these authoritative institutions are challenged. This notion of an individual that chooses what to believe and what not coincides with the post-modernist ‘language games’ (Lyotard, 1984). However, these are preliminary conclusions. The next chapter will assess which institutions are subject to distrust and which narratives are used in order to justify this.

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5. Distrusting institutions

During the previous chapters, the concept of ‘institutions’ has not been defined unambiguously. Due to the respondents’ issues with varying institutions, up until now the text refrained from specifying which institutions were targeted specifically. In this chapter, the different institutions are separately assessed, providing a clear view of the differences between the narratives that are used concerning the various institutions. First, distrust in the government will be assessed. As previously mentioned, the origin of distrust is often targeted at the government. Different reasons not to trust the government are discussed throughout the previous chapter. This chapter will focus more on different recurring themes and the discourse that the respondents used. After this, conspiracies, media, science and the judicial system will be assessed.

5.1. Distrusting government and politics

During the interviews, every respondent mentioned at least once that they had little trust in either local, national or international (e.g. European) government. For instance, Mike, critically assess the interests of the national government.

“I know that the state has all kinds of interests, that are largely opposing my own interests. And I know that they can influence people and that people can be manipulative

and that governments can do that too.” 5.1.1 The system

Often associated with, although not strictly limited to, the discourse on governments, is the term ‘system’. It appears to be a recurring concept that often refers to a more or less impenetrable set of institutions that form a tight set of norms, rules and laws, with little room for divergence. In most cases, the term is used without any elaboration on what this system entails precisely. Nevertheless, most respondents agree on the fact that ‘the system’ is something unwanted that doesn’t work in the best interest of the citizens.

“It’s not that I have an issue with the people [that work at the government], but with the system. (…) It is based on fear and suspicion and debt and fines. (…) The problem with the system is that people are scared and don’t dare to [do something] without support of

others.” (Toos)

“People vote for a party, that party decides after the voting what they are going to do. And that is: same old, same old. Keeping the system in place, redirecting the citizens to the side-lines and doing what they are used to do. That is how the system operates. (…) And I see now, that we live in a system where the power is isolated, they are not held

accountable to the citizens.” (Marvin)

“The system does not have mercy on the individual” (Rudy)

These quotes are clear examples of a discourse where ‘the system’ is used in a negative way. These respondents all mention it as part of their explanation to the question why they are suspicious towards governments. However, the application of the term varies. For instance, Ben refers to the way the economy is organized and the role that governments play in that. This is an entirely different discourse than Marvin uses, where ‘system’ refers to the way Dutch politics and the electoral process is organized. Amongst the respondents, it is clear that the application of the term ‘system’ may range

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24 from governments to politics, economics, judicial areas, media and science. These specific institutions will be elaborated on later in this chapter.

“So: the media is being manipulated, heavily. The government doesn’t care what happens to the Netherlands, putting it very black and white. But that’s what it boils

down to. And he EU has to be taken down as fast as possible.” (Wilma)

“If you look around, nothing the media says is true. I think that the media is an institute that is funded by government business, so to say. Media business, just like politics, its

complete corruption. (…) It’s all part of the system.” (Bert)

Despite the fact that in specific cases, it may be obvious what the respondent means when referring to a system, a certain component always remains undefined. There are only two respondents that adopted a discourse in which there is a clear definition of the system as such and why it is a problem:

“It’s primarily neoliberal capitalism. That’s not a sustainable system, but it would do anything in order to stay in power.” (Simon)

“If you look at it with a ‘bird’s eye view’, like, ‘how do things work?’. Then you end up at the banks. It’s very easy, you just follow the money. (…) And then you end up at the

currency system, you end up at ‘fractional reserve banking’.” (Jack, 29, male)

They both refer to an economic entity, Simon to capitalism and Jack to the bankers. They both continue to explain how this system works, according to them. Thus, knowledge about the institutions play an important role in the framing of their distrust. After probing for more information about the driving force behind this undefined system, some refer to a group of people in numerous institutions that control this system. This group is often defined as the ‘establishment’ or the ‘elite’.

5.1.2 The establishment

Throughout the interviews, seven different respondents referred to either the establishment or the elite. These two concepts are considered to entail roughly the same, i.e. a group of people that are ‘in charge’ of society. This can, however, transcend national government, scaling to a geo-political context. The existence of such an establishment is a reason why some respondents are distrusting towards the government. As Mike’s quote of the previous paragraph already showed, ‘their’ interests are considered different than the interests of the respondents. In the following excerpts the establishment is quite negatively approached:

“When you get older, you start to see that the people that pretend to be the establishment, government, etc. That they actually are a bunch of psychopaths that

want the power for themselves.” (Jack)

“Many people think: ‘We just have to vote for a good party’. But the problem is, once that party becomes big, they become corrupted from the inside or when they do get on certain posts, they come into contact with the established values and they will make sure

that they will answer to them.” (Alex)

When talking about the establishment, some respondents brought up Geert Wilders, leader of the Dutch right-wing populist party PVV (Freedom Party). Two respondents acknowledged that they voted for him and two other respondents said they sympathized with his ideas. Another two respondents

Part of the system or puppets on a string? : research on the framing of different types institutional distrust