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Executive Summary
The fact that the Arab Spring took U.S. policymakers by surprise shows that relying on the strength of civil society and electoral processes to assess the quality of the government and promote democracy fails to predict political outcomes or inform effective policy interventions. Instead, a more reliable approach to U.S. policymaking, based on the idea of political trust, is the trust differential framework. In weak democratic states, empirical data shows that high trust in civil society with a simultaneous low trust in government institutions creates conditions for uprisings rather than regime stability. The new framework, measuring trust disaggregated across different institutions, including civil society, judiciary, police, and government agencies, can be used to forecast how political trust can lead to regime instability, democratic consolidation, or democratic backsliding. Only by understanding these differentiated trust patterns can the U.S. promote democracy more effectively than simply relying on reactive responses to develop predictive capabilities and strategic intervention tools.
Introduction
This report proposes the Trust Differential Framework, which examines political trust across governmental and non-governmental institutions to evaluate the probability of regime stability or regime change, and then guides the appropriate policy intervention. U.S. policymakers have historically relied on a set of factors to assess the quality of a regime and determine the necessary policy intervention, including the existence and strength of civil society, the electoral process, and the overall performance of a regime. The traditional U.S democracy promotion framework, based on the idea of liberal internationalism, failed to predict the Arab Spring. This reflects critical gaps in the way the U.S. has evaluated regime stability and allocated resources for democracy promotion in the Middle East. The Arab Spring demonstrated that the existence of robust civil society organizations does not necessarily correlate with political stability, but rather strong civil society accompanied by a lack of trust in key political institutions, such as the military, can contribute to uprisings. Measuring trust in institutions through trust analysis provides key insight into political institutions and their role in regime stability. This report posits, based on empirical data, that differing levels of trust in the government, the police, the judiciary, and civil society can indicate the probability of protest, an effective model for policymakers to prevent future surprises.
Policy Recommendations
Move Beyond One-Size-Fits-All Approaches
To promote democracy, solutions should be context-specific based on detailed institutional trust profiles that account for mistrust in the public confidence levels.
Establish Trust Monitoring Systems
Analyze institutional legitimacy patterns to create comprehensive trust profiling systems for countries that can provide early warning indicators of regime change, instability, or democratization opportunities.
Design Democracy Policy Based on Trust Profiles
Policies that promote democracy should use governmental and nongovernmental trust profiles to identify effective recipients and reduce corruption risks while increasing policy impacts.
Shift the Operational Model
U.S. democracy promotion policy should transition from a reactive model to a predictive one using political trust to identify and address mistrust that can trigger political uprising or democratic backsliding.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and not an official policy or position of New Lines Institute.