Sofie Marien is a postdoctoral researcher of the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) at the Centre for Citizenship and Democracy. She joined the political science department in October 2007. She is a member of the IAP project 'Participation and Representation' (www.partirep.eu). She is also a visiting scholar at Åbo Academy (Finland). Her research interests include political trust, political participation and representation. Previously, her work has been published in among others Political studies, European Journal of Political Research and Government and Opposition. In her PhD thesis, she analysed trends in political trust, factors influencing political trust and the behaviour associated with low levels of political trust. The analyses are mainly based on the PartiRep-surveys (2009) and ESS surveys (2002-2008).