In my PhD project, I analyse how individuals perceive and evaluate competing political narratives on what democracy is, how it should function, and whom it serves – and how these attitudes translate into (mis)trust in both democratic and non-democratic regimes. Using Germany as a case study, I examine public attitudes towards competing narratives about democracy within the German political discourse, alongside externally promoted counter-narratives from the Russian state. The Russian regime advances a notion of “sovereign democracy,” which challenges liberal democratic norms by framing non-liberal, autocratic regimes as legitimate and modern alternatives to liberal democracy (Prozorova, 2024).
Empirical studies suggest that support for Vladimir Putin among segments of the German public may reflect deeper political alienation and low levels of satisfaction with democracy (see among others Hoffeller & Steiner, 2024; Mader et al., 2022). My project aims to deepen this understanding by exploring how different social groups in Germany interpret and relate to competing democratic narratives.
My project builds on a threefold theoretical framework, integrating:
(1) the structural dimension of political representation and exclusion (Schäfer & Zürn, 2021),
(2) the individual dimension of political trust and judgment (Norris, 2022), and
(3) the narrative dimension of political meaning-making and identity (Somers, 1994; Peterson & Monroe, 1998, McLaughlin et al. 2019).
This framework conceptualises trust as an outcome of the interplay between individuals’ cognitive evaluations, their affective experiences of belonging and exclusion, and the narrative environments in which they are embedded.
Methodologically, I employ a mixed-methods design. Narrative interviews will provide insights into how individuals assess the trustworthiness of political narratives and leaders, how they interpret and navigate competing narratives, and how they articulate personal understandings and interpretations of what democracy means and entails. The findings from the interviews are complemented by an online survey that maps broader attitudinal patterns in the German public and tests the prevalence of specific political narratives.