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55 Comp. Pol. Stud. 3 (2022)

handle is hein.journals/compls55 and id is 1 raw text is: Article Comparative Political Studies 2022, Vol. 55(1) 3-31 W hy People Turn to © The Author(s) 2021 Article reuse guidelines: Institutions They Detest: sgpbom/iourasr ons M DOI: 10.1 177/0010414021 1024299 Institutional Mistrust ournasssagepubcom/home/cps and Justice System Engagement in Uneven Democratic States Lisa Hilbink' , Valentina Salas', Janice K. Gallagher2, and Juliana Restrepo Sanin3 Abstract Does political mistrust lead to institutional disengagement? Much work in political science holds that trust matters for political participation, including recourse to the justice system. Scholars of judicial institutions, relying largely on survey research, argue that low trust decreases legal compliance and cooperation, threatening the rule of law. Legal consciousness and mobilization scholars, meanwhile, suggest that trust does not drive justice system en- gagement. However, their single-case study approach makes assessing the wider implications of their findings difficult. Based on an innovative com- parative focus-group study in two uneven democratic states, Chile and Colombia, we show that trust is not the primary factor driving justice system engagement. Rather, people's engagement decisions are shaped by their expectations and aspirations for their political system and by their politically constructed capacities for legal agency. Our study offers insights of relevance 'University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA 2Rutgers University, Newark, NJ, USA 3University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA Corresponding Author: Lisa Hilbink, University of Minnesota, 1414 Soc Science Bld., 267 19th Ave S, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA. Email: hilbink@urmn.edu