The seminar will be held in English.

The Hamburg Political Science Seminar Series (HPS³) features international speakers presenting cutting-edge research in all subfields of political science.

We welcome on

Wednesday, December 02, 2026 - 16:30-18:00 CET in Allende-Platz 1 (AP 1) Room 110

Benjamin Gerhard Engst (NorwegianUniversity of Science and Technology)

Title: Trust without commitment: The Trust Differential and Support for Judicial Independence

Abstract:
Democratic erosion may not simply weaken trust in domestic institutions but redirect it toward alternative sources of authority,including supranational institutions. What, then, does it mean when citizens trust an international court more than their national apex court? We distinguish between a principled account, in which trust reflects perceived institutional independence, impartiality, and legitimacy, and an instrumental account, in which trust reflects political alignment and strategic considerations. To assess these accounts, we introduce the trust differential, defined as the within-person difference in trust between two institutions. Using survey and discrete-choice experimental data from eight EU member states, we compare trustin the Court of Justice of the European Union and national apex courts. Respondents in Hungary and Poland exhibit substantially stronger ECJ-favoring trust differentials than those in six stable democracies. In both countries, these differentials are also more strongly associated with government–opposition status, consistent with an instrumental account. The experiment reveals a similarly selective pattern when turning to the supranational level. Hungarianand Polish respondents who trust the ECJ more than their national apex court are more accepting of political influence over the judiciary. These findings challenge a principled interpretation of institutional trust and underscore the role of instrumental considerations. More broadly, the trust differential offers a general measure for comparing institutions with overlapping or competing authority and reveals how democratic erosion reshapes institutional resilience..

Keywords: Institutional resilience; Judicial independence; European Union; Discrete-choice experiment

The HPS³ seminars take place in person at the UHH. Please find the preliminary program (pdf) on the HPS³ Website.

We invite everyone interested to attend the HPS Seminar Series and are looking forward to seeing you. 

No prior registration is needed.