Mistrust of science or distrust in democracy ?

The Centre de recherches poli­tiques de Sciences Po (CEVIPOF) has been run­ning the Poli­ti­cal Trust Baro­me­ter, since 2009. This aca­de­mic sur­vey exa­mines trust as a socio-poli­ti­cal issue. It is used to assess confi­dence of the public in poli­ti­cal and social ins­ti­tu­tions – such as science – par­ti­cu­lar­ly in the context of the Covid-19 out­break. The rela­tion­ship bet­ween science and poli­tics, in the broad sense, helps us to ques­tion public opi­nion through the lens of social struc­tures, cultu­ral repre­sen­ta­tions or poli­ti­cal anthropology.

Science is a social ins­ti­tu­tion, just like fami­ly, edu­ca­tion, the law or the mili­ta­ry. But, in France, it is also lin­ked to repu­bli­ca­nism. The idea of the Repu­blic res­ts on a posi­ti­vist phi­lo­so­phy, mea­ning a world of public action and poli­ti­cal debate stee­ped in science. The aim is to lead a rea­so­ned debate, on the basis of expe­ri­men­ta­tion or, at the very least, scien­ti­fic rea­so­ning. Due to this approach, the French Repu­blic dif­fers from other demo­cra­tic regimes, such as the US demo­cra­cy, which revolves more around com­mu­ni­ty values. The French Repu­blic is inten­ded to be uni­ver­sal in nature, and to that end it draws on scien­ti­fic ratio­na­li­ty. The­re­fore, the issue of science is fundamental. 

The health cri­sis illus­tra­ted this fact very well. Scien­ti­fic dis­course is borne by dif­ferent actors : scien­tists, experts who pass on scien­ti­fic know­ledge in a regu­la­to­ry and poli­ti­cal context, science com­mu­ni­ca­tors and broad­cas­ters (social net­works, news chan­nels). It also involves dif­ferent sources of infor­ma­tion, inclu­ding sta­tis­ti­cal indi­ca­tors pro­vi­ded by the govern­ment, scien­ti­fic publi­ca­tions, and other scien­ti­fic content.

The latest waves¹ of the Baro­me­ter show that pure science remains a very trust­wor­thy ins­ti­tu­tion, with a glo­bal trust rate of 82%, second only to hos­pi­tals (83%) and before the mili­ta­ry (76%) or the police (72%). Howe­ver, when you get into spe­ci­fics it appears that the more a scien­ti­fic ins­ti­tu­tion gets clo­ser to the govern­ment the more trust declines. For sources of infor­ma­tion on the health situa­tion, trust pla­ced in doc­tors is 91%. It decreases to 68% for scien­ti­fic experts advi­sing the govern­ment and drops to 42% for the govern­ment alone². 

Scien­ti­fic acti­vi­ties are tain­ted by the fee­ling of mis­trust towards the govern­ment. Lack of confi­dence in the offi­cial mes­sage also affects experts and offi­cial sta­tis­tics. A demo­cra­tic malaise leads to scep­ti­cism towards any speech rela­ted to the Covid-19 out­break, inclu­ding its evo­lu­tion, pre­ven­tive mea­sures, or vac­ci­na­tion policy. 

In France, demo­cra­tic malaise is roo­ted in the rise of popu­lism, mea­ning the oppo­si­tion bet­ween people and elites, the lat­ter inclu­ding scien­tists. There is mis­trust in autho­ri­ta­tive speech. But popu­lism is not homo­ge­nous, right-wing popu­lism is not the same as left-wing popu­lism. If mis­trust in science increases with popu­lism (only 36% of popu­lists stron­gly sup­por­ted science in 2020), its rea­sons are roo­ted in the poli­ti­cal side.

Left-wing popu­lism is par­ti­cu­lar­ly obser­ved in people close to the poli­ti­cal par­ty France Insou­mise, for example. They claim to be anti-esta­blish­ment, express anti-govern­ment opi­nions, but value science and are in favour of edu­ca­tion and research. Trust issues arise when science is inter­t­wi­ned with pri­vate inter­ests or when it is used to desi­gn dubious or sus­pi­cious tech­no­lo­gies. From their point of view science is tain­ted by pri­vate inter­est and corruption.

Right-wing popu­lism most­ly involves voters from the Ras­sem­ble­ment Natio­nal. This poli­ti­cal par­ty is also asso­cia­ted with a rejec­tion of elites and govern­men­tal ins­ti­tu­tions. But mis­trust in science is based more on affect, com­mon sense or tra­di­tion. Thus, 66% of respon­dents esti­ma­ted that “com­mon sense is often more use­ful than scien­ti­fic know­ledge”. Abs­trac­tion, scien­ti­fic rea­so­ning and ratio­nal debate are thus a source of dis­trust. We observe, for example, that sta­tis­ti­cal rea­so­ning is rejec­ted and repla­ced by the per­cep­tion of imme­diate rea­li­ty or chance. Science is consi­de­red to be an ins­ti­tu­tion fabri­ca­ted by “savants”, which leads to an arti­fi­cial social divide.

The health cri­sis did not change this obser­va­tion. The com­pa­ri­son bet­ween stu­dies of 2018 and 2020 shows that demo­cra­tic malaise has been trans­po­sed to the field of health. The Covid-19 cri­sis mere­ly confirms, or even ampli­fies, the frac­ture bet­ween those who adhere to scien­ti­fic ratio­na­li­ty and those who reject it. And this phe­no­me­non seems to feed conspi­ra­cy theories.

Fur­ther­more, the pre­vious wave of the Baro­me­ter shows that even the decrease in vac­cine hesi­tan­cy is not lin­ked to changes regar­ding trust in ins­ti­tu­tions. The wider accep­tance of the vac­cine – which now covers 65% of par­ti­ci­pants – is only moti­va­ted by the wish to return to a nor­mal life (the first ans­wer for 45% of respon­dents favou­rable to vac­ci­na­tion). The popu­lar cate­go­ries believe that they are “pro­tec­ting them­selves” whe­reas upper classes feel that they are “pro­tec­ting others”.

Howe­ver, the govern­ment is unable to capi­ta­lise on the rela­tive suc­cess of its vac­ci­na­tion stra­te­gy. The mis­trust in poli­ti­cal deci­sions is deep, regard­less of accom­plish­ments. Mis­trust is spin­ning and this casts doubt on all the eva­lua­tion mecha­nisms of govern­ment policies.

And this situa­tion is spe­ci­fic to France. Even though popu­lism also exists in Ger­ma­ny or in the Uni­ted King­dom – coun­tries in which we led com­pa­ra­tive sur­veys – they are see­king more direct actions from their citi­zens in order to improve repre­sen­ta­tive demo­cra­cy. In France, they are a rejec­tion of the exis­ting poli­ti­cal sys­tem. This situa­tion also explains the signi­fi­cant amount of abs­ten­tion, and the grea­ter sus­pi­cion towards scien­ti­fic exper­tise in France.

Interview by Agnès Vernet