Vigilance and Confidence: Jeremy Bentham, Publicity, and the Dialectic of Political Trust and Distrust

Distrust of public authorities is a mainstay of democratic politics. In recent decades, however, concern with surging civic suspicion has led political scientists to emphasize the value of trust for good government. This article advances a novel reading of Jeremy Bentham's political theory to shed light on the promise and perils of these two dispositions. Trust and distrust go together, in Bentham's account. In making this case, I reexamine Bentham's reflections on publicity, and distinguish between two perspectives implicit in his theory—the perspective of institutional design, and the perspective of popular oversight. This distinction brings clarity to Bentham's surprising recommendation: sober distrust toward public authorities generally, together with particularized trust in those (and only those) institutions or officials who prove themselves worthy of it.