Trust in Political Science in Emergent Contexts

Tadeas Cely

Aarhus University

Andrew L. Roberts

Northwestern University

The Issue of Lukewarm Trust

Overall, scientists evoked positive perceptions given that all social evaluations and trust ratings were above the mid-point of the scales (though note that political scientists and economists evoked noticeably lower ratings of morality and trust compared to other occupations).

Gligorić, Kleef, and Rutjens (2024)

When asked how confident they were that various professions act in the best interests of the American public, Americans gave middling reviews of political scientists. [..] Confidence in political scientists is similar to that in journalists; Democrats are generally more confident, and Republicans less. Such confidence is generally less than that placed on economists, English professors, and historians.

Polarization Research Lab 2024

Showing Value of Research

  • Trusting public is a precondition for social impact, Lupia (2013)
  • Lukewarm trust threatens impact, funding, and evidence-based reasoning
  • A lively debate in the US (APSA task force, PS special issue) addresses the field’s public value, Lupia and Aldrich (2015)
  • But it centers on well-established contexts; recommendations elsewhere are absent

Research Gap

  • In emerging contexts, the discipline is weakly integrated Barceló et al. (2025) and less politicized
  • Unique, poorly described trust challenges—motivating the Czech case, Eberle et al. (2021)

Trust Under Debate

Trust Divides

Does trust align with social and political divides?

  • Trust tends to align with social divides, fostering groupthink, Schulman et al. (2025)
  • One remedy: diversify faculty to mirror distrusting publics, Druckman et al. (2025)
  • A documented left-wing bias among academics, in the US and Europe, Gross (2013); Van de Werfhorst (2020)

Trust Under Debate

Improving Practice, Maintaining Integrity

Can trust improve without changing findings?

  • Still probably subject to partisan motivated reasoning: a partisan lens discounts evidence, Lodge and Taber (2013)
  • To not compromise integrity, we can only improve research practice
  • Open science, credibility revolution yield quality signals seen as raising trustworthiness, Grossmann (2021); Jamieson et al. (2019)

Czech case

  • More representative of the field globally: most studies rely on U.S. samples, but Cologna et al. (2025)
  • Empirical focus is predominant (not to be taken for granted!), yet research remains semi-peripheral, Eberle et al. (2021)
  • Underdeveloped in terms of practices
  • Not at the cutting edge of current trends, given the post-communist context and its (dis)advantages

Methods

Mass Survey

  • 1530 respondents, online sample, quotas, July 2025
  • Main DV: How much do you personally trust political scientists?
  • OLS, with controls, replicated with different measures

Experiment

  • Conjoint-style design (but scale): “Would you consider such research trustworthy?” (11-point scale)
  • Six repeated tasks + checks; seventh replicates the first
  • OLS with respondent-clustered robust SEs
  • Demanding, still: 67.4% passed strict attention check; 62% within ±1 point in replication task

Experiment

Example Vignette

Expert Survey

Testing against expectations of political science community

  • Perceptions of trust
  • Ideological bias
  • Expectations about experimental results
  • Prevalent questionable research practices, Schneider et al. (2024)

All political science departments in Czechia, 9 universities, including PhD students

Response rates similar across gender, department type or seniority

Results

Trust Divides

 

Trust Divides

Predictor Est. 95% CI p Est. 95% CI p
Intercept 2.58 2.38–2.79 <0.001 3.32 2.98–3.66 <0.001
Income 0.09 0.03–0.14 0.002 0.05 -0.01–0.10 0.093
Woman -0.02 -0.11–0.08 0.742 0.02 -0.07–0.12 0.633
Age (std.) -0.13 -0.17–-0.08 <0.001 -0.11 -0.16–-0.06 <0.001
CECT (std.) 0.02 -0.03–0.07 0.391 0.02 -0.03–0.07 0.452
Ideology
Economic 0.00 -0.04–0.04 0.963
Social -0.01 -0.06–0.03 0.500
Transnational -0.16 -0.20–-0.12 <0.001
Education (reference: Elementary)
High school 0.09 -0.02–0.20 0.115 0.06 -0.05–0.17 0.258
University 0.06 -0.08–0.19 0.405 -0.03 -0.17–0.10 0.607
Settlement (reference: <2,000)
2,000–19,999 0.03 -0.11–0.16 0.721 0.03 -0.11–0.16 0.682
>20,000 0.03 -0.09–0.15 0.634 0.02 -0.10–0.14 0.693
N 1428 1428
R² / Adj. R² 0.031/0.026 0.080/0.073

Trust Divides

Trust Divides

Trust Divides

Predictor Est. 95% CI p
Intercept 2.65 2.39–2.91 <0.001
Economic
Left-wing bias -0.26 -0.42–-0.09 0.003
Right-wing bias -0.11 -0.25–0.04 0.148
Social
Conservative bias -0.06 -0.22–0.11 0.500
Liberal bias -0.12 -0.27–0.02 0.091
Transnational
Anti-Western bias -0.05 -0.23–0.13 0.591
Pro-Western bias 0.16 0.02–0.31 0.029
Socioeconomic controls ✓
N 998
R² / Adj. R² 0.048 / 0.034

Research Practices

Research Practices

Questionable Research Practice % SE N
Methodological Rigor
HARKing (Quantitative) 54% 7.2% 48
Ignoring Practical Significance 47% 6.9% 53
Redundant Publication 47% 7.1% 49
False Qualitative Claims 37% 6.9% 49
HARKing (Qualitative) 36% 7.1% 45
Overstating Results 33% 7.2% 43
P-Hacking 32% 7.7% 37
Misinterpreting Non-Significant Results 29% 7.0% 42
Undisclosed Data Recycling 25% 6.1% 51
External Control
Citation without Reading 77% 5.8% 52
Selective Citation to Appease Reviewers 60% 6.7% 53
Superficial Peer Review 42% 6.9% 52
Data/Methodology Non-Disclosure 24% 6.6% 42
Unqualified Peer Review Acceptance 23% 5.6% 57
Deliberate Omission of Contradictory Studies 18% 5.3% 51
Undisclosed Conflicts of Interest 13% 4.7% 52
Academic Integrity & Ethical Conduct
Excessive Self-Citation 56% 6.8% 54
Honorary Authorship 53% 6.7% 55
Biased Peer Review 21% 5.9% 48
Plagiarizing Unpublished Ideas 6% 3.4% 49

Conclusions

Conclusions

  • Trust is limited even in emerging contexts—no more than a third trust political scientists—constraining research impact
  • But distrust is mostly evenly distributed, so faculty-representativeness remedies may not transfer here, Druckman et al. (2025); Schulman et al. (2025)
  • Instead, signals of good practice are the more promising levers
  • Signaling rigor, open data, preregistration, and peer review can substantially shape trustworthiness, Jamieson et al. (2019); Grossmann (2021)

References

Barceló, Joan, Christopher Paik, Peter van der Windt, and Haoyu Zhai. 2025. “A Global Ranking of Research Productivity of Political Science Departments.” PS: Political Science & Politics 58 (3): 574–85. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1049096524001239.
Cologna, Viktoria, Niels Mede, Sebastian Berger, et al. 2025. “Trust in Scientists and Their Role in Society Across 68 Countries.” Nature Human Behaviour 9 (4): 713–30. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-024-02090-5.
Druckman, James N., Katherine Ognyanova, Alauna Safarpour, Jonathan Schulman, Kristin Lunz Trujillo, Ata Aydin Uslu, Jon Green, et al. 2025. “Representation in Science and Trust in Scientists in the USA.” Nature Human Behaviour, December, 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-025-02358-4.
Eberle, Jakub, Hubert Smekal, Petr Ocelík, and Oldřich Krpec. 2021. “Political Science in Central and Eastern Europe: Integration with Limited Convergence in Czechia.” European Political Science 20 (1): 183–203. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41304-020-00311-9.
Gligorić, Vukašin, Gerben van Kleef, and Bastiaan Rutjens. 2024. “How Social Evaluations Shape Trust in 45 Types of Scientists.” PLOS ONE 19 (4): e0299621. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0299621.
Gross, Neil. 2013. Why Are Professors Liberal and Why Do Conservatives Care? Harvard University Press.
Grossmann, Matt. 2021. How Social Science Got Better: Overcoming Bias with More Evidence, Diversity, and Self-Reflection. New York: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197518977.001.0001.
Jamieson, Kathleen Hall, Marcia McNutt, Veronique Kiermer, and Richard Sever. 2019. “Signaling the Trustworthiness of Science.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 116 (39): 19231–36. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1913039116.
Lodge, Milton, and Charles S. Taber. 2013. The Rationalizing Voter. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Lupia, Arthur. 2013. “Communicating Science in Politicized Environments.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 110 (supplement_3): 14048–54. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1212726110.
Lupia, Arthur, and John H. Aldrich. 2015. “How Political Science Can Better Communicate Its Value: 12 Recommendations from the APSA Task Force.” PS: Political Science & Politics 48 (S1): 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1049096515000335.
Schneider, Jesper, Nick Allum, Jens Andersen, et al. 2024. “Is Something Rotten in the State of Denmark? Cross-National Evidence for Widespread Involvement but Not Systematic Use of Questionable Research Practices.” PLOS ONE 19 (8): e0304342. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0304342.
Schulman, Jonathan, James N Druckman, Alauna Safarpour, Matthew A Baum, Katherine Ognyanova, Kristin Lunz Trujillo, Alexi Quintana Mathé, et al. 2025. “Continuity and Change in Trust in Scientists in the United States: Demographic Stability and Partisan Polarization.” Public Opinion Quarterly 89 (4): 1200–1238. https://doi.org/10.1093/poq/nfaf059.
Van de Werfhorst, Herman. 2020. “Are Universities Left-Wing Bastions? The Political Orientation of Professors, Professionals, and Managers in Europe.” The British Journal of Sociology 71 (1): 47–73.