SOAS Research Online

Abstract

Against the backdrop of the uncertainty that characterized the COVID-19 pandemic, trust emerged as a key term employed by public officials and policymakers in the UK to represent the existence or dissolution of state–society relationships. Despite its ubiquity, trust remained ambiguous in its precise meaning and multiple in its usage. Through an analysis of key policy documents published since the onset of the pandemic, we look beyond the definition of trust to explore its various roles in the UK policymaking at the national level. Drawing on the work of Vivien Schmidt (2008, 2010), we bring attention to the relationship between the cognitive (or instrumental) and normative (or valued-based) functions of trust in contradicting domains of community and security. We argue that the multiplicity of trust in policy discourse creates a false unity across conflictual domains of the government agenda, obfuscating the workings of an increasingly austere state. ‘Securitized trust’, we propose, is produced when the language of trust is mobilized through policies that work to enforce compliance with government agendas, to monitor organizing at the community level, to manage personal data, and to enhance policing.