"Contemporary democratic societies are in the midst of a legitimacy crisis. This crisis relates to different dimensions of democracy: a breakdown in meaningful representation of citizens' interests; a spreading tendency to resort to an unrestrained use of power that calls into question the liberal-democratic promise to protect individual rights and to cater to a stable system of checks and balances; and extreme and widening asymmetries in the distribution of power, status, and wealth among citizens."
"As a general diagnosis, we can posit that these phenomena, although different in quality and relating to different aspects of democracy, are fostered by a general and widespread erosion of trust. This erosion of trust concerns both the horizontal relationships between fellow citizens as members of the same polity and the vertical dimension of political authority, that is, the relationship between citizens and political institutions and representatives."
Democratic legitimacy is eroding through three interrelated failures: meaningful representation, restraint on political power, and equitable distribution of power, status, and wealth. Widespread erosion of trust undermines both horizontal relations among citizens and vertical relations between citizens and political institutions and representatives. The trust deficit fuels a crisis of representation as citizens perceive governments and democratic ideals as unresponsive to needs and preferences. Social mistrust destabilizes political systems and demotivates adherence to democratic norms. Deep polarization exacerbates frayed relationships and removes incentives for citizens to act as trustworthy epistemic and social agents.
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