Democratic accountability at risk The contingency of performance-based political trust

Democratic accountability lies at the heart of our representative democracy. The growing complexity of modern-day politics however hampers citizens from holding their representatives accountable and from giving informed consent. This thesis investigates the necessary conditions for democratic accountability on the micro-level, focusing specifically on the causal link between government performance (dis)satisfaction and political (dis)trust. It studies on what type of performance citizens’ evaluate their governments, which level of government they perceive as responsible for certain output, and the perceived salience of each policy area. This leads to important insights into the current debate on political dissatisfaction.