Although, public officials claim to have acted efficiently, civil so­ciety and flood survivors believe oth­erwise. While concrete post-disaster damage is easier to notice; another, rarely-talk­ed-about, type of damage is the one to political trust post-natural tragedies. A disaster’s severity and its media cover­age are two other factors that affect po­litical trust in post-disaster efforts. In such sit­uations, citizens’ trust in each other also lowers, as they start perceiving others as hostile actors, indicating that declining political trust can also breed the decline in social trust. The effect of declining political trust isn’t just confined to rising crime rates and a lessening of national cohesion, rather it has practical political ramifi­cations too.

Source: The Nation November 14, 2022 17:11 UTC