Project description
How public organisations respond to conspiratorial distrust
Public trust in institutions, such as the media, is fading as many Europeans suspect that hidden groups are influencing them. This conspiratorial distrust threatens democracy, but little is known about how organisations address it. The ERC-funded DISTRUST project will explore how public organisations respond to conspiratorial distrust. It will address three questions: How do these organisations view conspiracy theories as a challenge? How have they reacted to such distrust over time? And how can these reactions be understood through organisational sociology? The project will focus on media, government, science, and education across Italy, the Netherlands, and Poland. Using qualitative methods, such as archival research, critical policy analysis, interviews, and participant observation, it will generate comparative insights.
Objective
How do public organizations respond to rising levels of popular distrust fueled by conspiracy theories? Many European citizens no longer trust their own societal institutions to work for the public good, but imagine those to be governed by a shadowy cabal with nefarious motives. While there is much research on conspiracy theories, there is little, if any, academic knowledge on how these institutions deal with rising levels of conspiratorial distrust. This clear knowledge gap is all the more surprising given that conspiracy theories are generally seen as a threat to the authority, legitimacy and functioning of these institutions and to democratic societies as a whole.
DISTRUST therefore opens up that question to sociological scrutiny. Firmly grounded in institutional and organizational sociological theory, this research project’s prime objective is to understand how public organizations deal with conspiratorial distrust. It advances three main research questions:
1) how do public organizations conceive of conspiracy theories as a challenge to their operations?
2) how do they empirically react (and have reacted) to these forms of distrust?
3) how can we explain these reactions following organizational sociological theory?
This project studies four key societal institutions (media, government, science, and education) in three conceptually opposed European countries (The Netherlands, Italy, and Poland), and on the supranational level. It deploys various qualitative research methods (archival studies, critical policy analysis, interviews and participant observation). As such, it provides both comprehensive research of different public organizations, as well as comparative understandings across institutions and countries. To make this knowledge more robust and societally relevant, the last phase of this project deploys participatory research with professionals working at these organizations to reflect on their actions and their (unanticipated) consequences
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Keywords
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Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Topic(s)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants
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Call for proposal
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Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2025-COG
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1012WX Amsterdam
Netherlands
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