Acceso usuarios
Declining political trust has long been seen as a challenge for democracies, andparliaments seek to counter this through public engagement. Many parliamentshave established visitor centres and both expanded and professionalised theirvisiting services. Parliamentary visiting programmes are in high demand withsome parliaments attaining millions of visitors every year. However, little isknown about how such programmes impact on visitors. Therefore, the presentstudy investigates whether or not political trust changes as a result of a visit toparliament, and whether it makes a difference when visitors observe aparliamentary debate. N = 746 adult parliamentary visitors to the StateParliament of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, were asked about their trustin politics in a pre–post study at both the beginning and the end of their visit.Results showed that visiting parliament had only a very small positive effect onpolitical trust, and that there was no significant difference in impact betweenvisit programmes with vs without observing a plenary debate. Results are alsorelevant for the question of the stability of political trust in adulthood.
