For a long time German public opinion displayed high rates of trust in Chancellor Angela Merkel and her CDU party, as well as the federal government. In recent years, however, there have been signs of a general decline in trust, though the evidence in Germany is much less conclusive than in the UK or France. This chapter provides data to support the existence of a solid foundation of political trust in Germany at all territorial levels of the political system. At the same time, the data (whether that of private enterprises, like the Edelman Trust Barometer, or public institutions, such as Eurobarometer) casts doubt on the enduring features of trust in the national government, the parliament or political institutions in general. The chapter overviews national trends of trust and transparency in Germany. It then offers a closer comparison in the two distinct Länder of Hesse and Saxony Anhalt. Hesse is an affluent, dynamic land with a rising population, and is home to the dynamic metropolis Frankfurt, as well as a vibrant business community and associative life. Saxony-Anhalt, on the other hand, is economically stagnant with a shrinking population and problems of multicultural community integration.

The chapter follows a similar comparative logic to that undertaken in France and the UK. In the case of Germany, the trust– transparency nexus is understood mainly in terms of political accountability, administrative transparency, party politics, policy issues regarding trust and transparency in the two Länder and the operation of civil society. These themes cut across commonalities and divergent aspects of Hesse and Saxony Anhalt. All these themes tie into the nexus between trust and transparency. Parties and actors that are accountable to civil society and political institutions play an important role for the production and deterioration of trust. The chapter concludes by situating the German case in relation to the trust– transparency matrix.

Exploring trust and transparency in Germany

In order to interpret secondary data on trust and transparency in Germany, it is necessary to situate this discussion within the dominant national intellectual and methodological traditions that have shaped the discourse around these concepts. In the prevalent German political sociology tradition, ‘institutional trust’, defined as the trust of citizens in institutions, is generally quantitatively oriented.