Cluster 3 | Rule of Law Culture: People, Trust, Communication and Pluralism

What makes the rule of law legitimate in people’s eyes – and how can that legitimacy be rebuilt?

Scope. This cluster treats the rule of law as a matter of culture and public legitimacy, not institutional or technical design alone. In what kind of culture do checks and balances thrive, and how resilient is that culture? Rather than revisiting familiar explanations of why voters turn to parties that weaken the rule of law, we want to focus on responses and foresight: what rebuilds democratic trust, what makes (dis)information environments more resilient, and where pressure is likely to come from next. How should judicial institutions communicate, and how can they adapt to decentralised, non-institutional public debate on social media? Sessions may also address the gap between perception and data, institutional versus emotional communication, pluralism versus polarisation, the role of journalists and artists in building cultural resilience, the renegotiation of the social contract at local, national and European level, the position of non-citizens, and how the rule of law can be anchored in diverse, multicultural societies.

Rationale. The rule of law cannot be sustained by institutions alone if it loses public legitimacy. This cluster takes the people’s angle head-on: the contested notion of “trust”, the gap between perception and data, the role of disinformation, and the communication gap between governments, legal experts, academics and the public. It asks what a resilient rule-of-law culture looks like – and how to build one.