Political party preference and social trust in four Nordic countries

Abstract

This article examines how the level of social trust varies between different party supporters in four Nordic countries. We aim to offer new interpretations concerning the associations between party preference and social trust by examining social activity, social status and institutional confidence of political party supporters. Our data are derived from the Danish, Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish sections of the European Social Survey including three recent rounds with over 20,000 observations. We found that the level of trust among the supporters of populist parties is relatively low in each country. Differences between parties may not be explained completely by respondents’ perceived social activity or institutional trust. Our results also suggest that higher societal status does not affect social trust similarly across party groups. In country comparison, we found that the supporters of populist parties are not as isolated in Finland as elsewhere. The article concludes with a discussion on interconnectivity between social trust and cultural homology, which is channelled by citizens’ political preference.