Distrust, detachment, indifference. That is how many citizens relate to those who are supposed to serve them. It is neither whim nor apathy: it is the logical response to years of opacity, patronage, sterile bureaucracy and a justice system seen as partisan. Is any public authority still fully honest and bound by the law? Citizens' experience suggests a troubling answer.
A silent threat to democracy
Over recent decades, disaffection with institutions has become one of the main threats to the health of democracies. It is neither marginal nor passing. Bodies such as the OECD speak openly of a crisis of trust, and European surveys show year after year that a considerable share of citizens regard corruption as widespread in their country.
More and more people feel that political decisions do not respond to their needs, that their representatives do not represent them, and that the administration is slow, remote or indifferent. That frustration translates into abstention, protest votes, civic withdrawal and, at worst, a dangerous tolerance of authoritarian solutions as a desperate answer to disillusionment.
Root causes: all three powers under suspicion
Disaffection does not come from nowhere. It feeds on specific, repeated failures across the three branches of the State:
- A legislature closed in on itself: closed lists, party discipline and debates focused on the survival of party leaderships rather than on social urgencies such as jobs, housing or healthcare.
- An opaque, clientelist executive: corruption scandals, placement of loyalists in public bodies, partisan use of institutions and a bureaucracy that exhausts citizens with endless red tape.
- A judiciary under suspicion: more and more citizens perceive that justice does not always act impartially, that there is collusion with political or economic power, or that the judicial machinery is used as a tool of persecution or cover-up as convenient.
- The self-serving judicialisation of politics: conflicts that should be settled in Parliament end up in the courts, and the courts end up as a partisan battlefield.
Add to this a sense of inaction in the face of social and economic crises: citizens see problems diagnosed again and again, but rarely solved.
Visible consequences
Disaffection does not merely erode trust; it damages the functioning of the democratic system itself. Its effects are already recognisable:
- Growing political and social polarisation, and ideological radicalisation.
- Demobilisation of civil society and loss of interest in public life.
- The spread of populist and denialist discourse promising simple solutions.
- A crisis of legitimacy for the rule of law.
- Loss of vocation and talent in public service.
A citizen who no longer expects anything from institutions is the unwitting best ally of those who corrupt them.
Not a perception, but an experience
Distrust is often presented as a communication problem, as if it were enough to explain better what is being done. But disaffection does not stem from a misunderstanding. It stems from the direct experience of thousands of people who have petitioned the administration without reply, who have reported irregularities only to see their complaints shelved, or who have gone to court and received decisions without any real reasoning.
Our association can back this up with specific cases and first-hand experience. That is why we refuse to treat the lack of trust as a flaw in citizens: it is the symptom of institutions that have stopped being accountable.
How can trust be restored?
Tackling disaffection takes far more than institutional campaigns. It requires deep, sustained reforms that put citizens at the centre of public action:
- Real transparency and effective accountability, with consequences for those who fail to comply.
- Binding citizen participation in major decisions.
- Simpler administrative procedures.
- Oversight bodies and courts that are genuinely independent of political parties.
- Restoring public service as a common good, not as political spoils.
Sovereignty is exercised every day
Disaffection is not a whim but an urgent democratic warning. The feeling that no authority any longer acts in full subjection to the law must not be normalised. Until trust is restored through deeds, impartial justice and genuine commitment, the rift between institutions and citizens will keep widening.
But the answer is not to withdraw. Sovereignty is not reaffirmed only at the ballot box, but in the daily scrutiny of power: demanding accountability, taking part, organising and reporting wrongdoing. Against disillusionment, organisation. Against opacity, demand.