Political trust among British first-time voters: a mixed methods investigation

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Recent evidence from extensive, cross-national survey data has shown a significant decline in publictrust around the world, with serious implications for the future of governance and democracy. Focusingon the UK, my proposed research is a mixed-method investigation into public trust amongst British youngpeople who will be eligible to vote for the first time in the 2024 General Election (first-time voters). Thisfocus has been chosen due to the centrality of this demographic to debates over public trust both acrossthe world and in the UK. Access into sixth forms for the recruitment of my purposive sample will beenabled by collaboration with the prominent citizenship education charity Young Citizens [letter ofsupport upon request].My proposed research aligns the aims of the ESRC-funded TrustGov project, co-led by my proposedsupervisor Professor Will Jennings. Using analysis of questionnaire data and exploratory focus groups, theresearch will investigate quantitative and qualitative aspects of trust, mistrust and distrust. Stage I of theresearch will utilise measures from the World Values Survey 7th to quantitatively measure trust, mistrustand distrust within the sample. This stage will generate novel data on the dimensions of political trustamong British young people and enable direct comparisons between first-time voters and the dimensionsof trust amongst the other age groups in the UK. Stage II will involve a series of 6-10 exploratory focusgroups with the same sample, giving a deeper insight into the trust attitudes of the participants thangained through survey methods alone.