Over the past five decades, trust in American institutions has declined, regardless of which party holds the presidency. Surveys consistently show that confidence in organizations designed to serve and sustain public and democratic life, including the government, the media, and higher education, has waned significantly.
In 2023, Stanford’s Hoover Institution launched a research center, The Center for Revitalizing American Institutions (RAI) to examine the causes of the decline and strategies to restore it.
“We recognize that Americans have begun to lose faith in their institutions,” said Condoleezza Rice, the Tad and Dianne Taube Director of the Hoover Institution. “We believe in practical solutions using top-quality research to shed light on our challenges and advance freedom in America. The institutions that the founding fathers bequeathed to us some 248 years ago are pretty spectacular when you think about it – they have allowed us to change peacefully over time and it is vital to our democracy that we preserve not only the foundational pillars themselves, but our confidence in and understating of them as well.”
Brandice Canes-Wrone | Rod Searcey
The importance of trust
This loss of trust threatens the health of our democracy, said political scientist Brandice Canes-Wrone, who leads RAI.
“When the public doesn’t trust an institution, that can significantly compromise its mission,” said Canes-Wrone, the Maurice R. Greenberg Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and a professor of political science in the School of Humanities & Sciences (H&S). “When trust is low, individuals may not as readily comply with agency recommendations, agencies may suffer recruitment issues for personnel, and even in cases where an agency is designed to address a problem, individuals facing that problem may avoid interacting with the agency.”
Rebuilding trust in institutions does not mean asking people for absolute faith in them, Canes-Wrone emphasized. “If an institution is worth having, it’s worth considering how to build the trust, either through reforms to the institution itself and/or education,” she said.
Understanding contributing factors
RAI takes a multifaceted approach to its mission.
One area is studying institutions in depth, from their original purpose to their evolution, their successes, and also their failings.
RAI also studies broader societal trends contributing to declining trust, particularly political polarization, which research shows has impeded consensus building crucial to democratic decision making.
But as Canes-Wrone points out, political polarization is only part of the issue. “While part of this trend is due to low trust from those whose party is out of office in government, it can’t simply be explained by such out-partisan disapproval or polarization,” Canes-Wrone said. “The trend also exists for political independents and those whose party holds power.”
As the United States approaches a Presidential transition, with a single party set to control both the executive and legislative branches, Canes-Wrone is closely monitoring what this shift means for governance – particularly in light of President-elect Donald Trump’s picks to lead government agencies that function to serve the public interest.
“Trump’s picks and the attention given to them highlight the enormous power of the administrative state,” Cane-Wrone said. “It will be interesting to see how much Trump’s appointees try to reform the agencies they are overseeing, which appears to be the intent for many cases, versus taking more symbolic positions while allowing those underneath them to lead the day-to-day operations.”
Making institutions work better
RAI is also exploring ways to improve institutional effectiveness through collaborations with scholars at Stanford and beyond who have deep expertise in government, civic organizations, and other related fields. Collaborators include former and current policymakers from across the political spectrum to identify different pain points in institutional processes.
Viewpoint diversity is central to RAI’s work. For example, the center recently co-authored Revitalizing the House: Bipartisan Recommendations on Rules and Process, a report RAI co-authored with the Sunwater Institute, a non-partisan think tank.
The report, one of RAI’s first task force publications, combines insights from former congressional members and staff with scholarly expertise to identify challenges faced by policymakers in the House of Representatives and proposes 14 actionable recommendations.
Data from Gallup reveals Congress is the institution Americans trust the least: in 2022, only 7% said they have “a great deal” or “quite a lot of confidence” in the legislative branch of government. This distrust coincides with growing political gridlock: the 118th Congress was among the least productive in modern history, passing only 27 laws in 2023.
“The capacity of Congress to solve pressing national problems is fundamental to our constitutional order,” Canes-Wrone said.
The report highlights a shift of power away from Congress to the executive branch, a change that coincides with the drop in legislative activity in the House. Party leaders’ consolidation of control over the House floor has also reduced opportunities for bipartisan compromise and lawmaking.
One recommendation is to change rules to ensure greater involvement of members by instituting procedures that guarantee hearings, markups, and deliberations for proposals with broad bipartisan support.
Another RAI project, the Improving American Elections Initiative, aims to boost public confidence in the electoral process. Led by Benjamin Ginsberg, the Volker Distinguished Visiting Fellow at Hoover, and Justin Grimmer, the Morris M. Doyle Centennial Professor in Public Policy in the School of Humanities and Sciences and senior fellow at Hoover, the initiative collaborates with state and local election officials to proactively address concerns about fraud. Proposed measures include increasing transparency in ballot counting and certification.
Helping people know their institutions
RAI also explores how civic education can enhance people’s understanding of how institutions work and their own role and responsibilities as citizens.
RAI is partnering with the Stanford Civics Initiative (SCI), a university-wide effort founded in 2019 by Stanford political scientist and Hoover senior fellow Josiah Ober to develop programming that examines the tacit underpinnings of citizenship while also helping students cultivate their own civic identity and purpose.
SCI is split between RAI and H&S, where Ober is the Markos & Eleni Kounalakis Chair in Honor of Constantine Mitsotakis and a professor of political science. At Hoover, SCI’s focus is on civic programming at the national level.
In April 2024, Ober convened a group of civics instructors from across the country to discuss civics education at their campuses and learn from each other what worked with their students. They also discussed the struggles they faced, particularly during a time when higher education is in the national spotlight. Their initial meeting led to a follow-up in October at the University of Colorado in Denver, with plans for further expansion.
Meanwhile, RAI has hosted various events and webinars for the Stanford community, including a series on “Reimagining American Institutions” that featured scholars in dialogue with former officials from across the political spectrum, including Chris Lidell, former White House deputy chief of staff 2018-2021), discussing presidential transitions with Canes-Wrone. Stephen Hadley, the 20th United States National Security Advisor (2005 to 2009) and 21st United States Deputy National Security Advisor (2001 to 2005) talked with Rice about transitions during the Bush and Obama presidencies.
The initiative will continue to expand its work in the coming months.
“Revitalizing our institutions will require a combination of a commitment to understanding and preserving what’s working, an openness to reform of what’s not working, and substantial effort to improve our civic culture both within and outside of our education institutions,” Canes-Wrone said.