Politicians finish at the bottom of the Ipsos Global Trustworthiness Index 2026. Yet we should ask a harder question than whether people trust them: How much power should anyone have when trust fails?
Across 31 countries, an average of 58% rate doctors trustworthy, followed by scientists at 57% and teachers at 53%. Politicians receive just 13%. The U.S. figures tell a similar story: teachers 59%, doctors 57%, scientists 53%, and politicians 11%.
Those numbers measure reputation. They don’t settle the proper relationship between citizen and state. A profession’s popularity can’t establish its authority, any more than an unpopular official’s reputation cancels a lawful duty.
That distinction matters because knowing something and having the right to decide for someone else are different things. A doctor may understand a treatment better than the patient. That expertise deserves a hearing. It doesn’t answer every question about consent, cost, risk, or who should make the final decision.
The same principle applies to education. Respect for a teacher’s knowledge doesn’t require parents to surrender responsibility for their children. A scientist’s findings can help citizens judge a policy. They can’t, by themselves, decide which freedoms citizens must give up to pursue it. Evidence informs judgment; it doesn’t abolish the need for judgment.
The temptation is to imagine that the right people would make limits unnecessary. Find officials we can trust, put the experts in charge, and let them solve the problem.
But what happens when they’re wrong? Who bears the cost? Who can say no? And what can an ordinary citizen do when the people making the decision refuse to admit a mistake?
Those questions should come before the grant of power. Constitutional limits, divided authority, and civil liberties matter precisely because neither intelligence nor good intentions makes a person infallible. A Christian understanding of human nature gives us another reason for restraint: education and public office don’t remove the capacity for pride, self-interest, or wrongdoing.
That doesn’t mean every official is corrupt or every expert is suspect. It means a sound institution needs more than assurances about the people running it. It needs clear duties, visible results, and a way to challenge errors. Where choice is practical, people should be able to take their business elsewhere. Where government must act, its authority should have a defined scope and an enforceable limit.
AI offers a useful test of the same principle. Ipsos finds that 23% consider chatbots trustworthy, while 40% consider them untrustworthy. A fluent answer still needs checking. Neither a polished screen nor an impressive credential should relieve the person using it of responsibility for the conclusion.
The survey can’t tell us why every respondent trusts or distrusts a profession. Ipsos interviewed 23,537 people online from June 19 through July 3. Its country averages aren’t weighted by national population, and some samples favor more connected or affluent respondents. The full report explains those limits.
Still, we don’t need a poll to establish the governing principle. Trust should grow from honest work, competence, and accountability. It shouldn’t become a demand that citizens stop asking questions.
Listen to people who know their subject. Check their claims. Hold them to their duties. And never confuse confidence in a person with permission to rule without limits.