Decades of research into political trust has established many insights into levels of trust. Scholars view political trust as volatile, albeit not structurally declining, and find large differences in trust levels between sociological groups show. However, the meaning of this concept is all but settled (e.g. van der Meer 2010; Bertsou 2020; Valgarðsson et al. 2020). Theoretically, only a few scholars have proposed dimensions along which that citizens would evaluate their trust in political actors and/or institutions, leading to divergent conceptualizations. Empirically, studies come to different conclusions as to which dimensions matter (most) as well.

Moreover, it is unclear whether the meaning of political trust is the same for all citizens. Studies into the understanding of political concepts show how particular positions in society come with particular world views through which political attitudes are constituted (Hochschild 2016; Cramer 2016).

This paper asks the question what political trust entails for different sociological groups. Through two rounds of focus group interviews in Amsterdam (the Netherlands), I investigate the meaning of political trust among four groups of acquaintances, namely: lawyers from a large international firm, market vendors, vocational students and bridge club members. These groups represent respectively high educated winners of globalization, low educated losers of globalization, low educated youth and high educated elderly. I examine whether and how dimensions of political trust in the literature matter for each group. Furthermore, I establish how the meaning of political trust each group uses is embedded in their broader political perspectives.