Confidence Across Cleavage: The Swiss Rural–Urban Divide, Place‐Based Identity and Political Trust

Abstract

AbstractSince political trust is crucial to the survival of political systems, securing its high levels is essential. While Switzerland exhibits a large rural–urban divide in direct democratic votes, it has not yet been researched whether such a divide also exists with regard to political trust. In my investigation of the Swiss rural–urban divide in political trust, I bring in place as a social identity and evaluate whether the rural–urban divide is contingent upon place‐based identity. I employ OLS regression models using original survey data from 2022 with about 4,000 respondents. Results reveal a significant but irrelevantly small rural–urban difference in political trust. However, when interacting place‐based identity with place of living, I find that identity inverts the rural–urban divide. When place‐based identity is low, rural residents exhibit higher levels of political trust than urban residents, but when place‐based identity is high, trust is higher in urban than in rural places.