Abstract
We test the importance of responsiveness, performance and corruption to explain the evolution of political trust in Spain between 1997 and 2019. To this end, the study analyses two longitudinal datasets, namely, a repeated cross-sectional dataset from the Spanish samples of Eurobarometer and an individual-level panel survey conducted during a period of economic recovery in 2015. The study finds that perceptions about political corruption and responsiveness matter greatly in shaping political trust and to a lesser extent economic performance. Although the Great Recession is likely responsible for the sharp decline in trust towards political parties and the parliament between 2008 and 2012, the analysis suggests that trust in representative institutions remains low even after the Recession because of a series of devastating corruption incidents and a perceived lack of responsiveness of the political system. On the other hand, the study finds indications that trust in the judicial system might have been mainly affected by perceptions of corruption.
Highlights
Political trust is in decline in many contemporary democracies
Political trust in Spain was gradually increasing during times of the economic boom at the end of the 1990s/first half of the 2000s but has suffered a dramatic decline after the financial and debt crisis after 2008 from which it has never recovered—despite a economic recovery after 2013
This article centred around this problem, contributing to the debate on the consequences of economic performance on citizens’ trust in representative institutions and the judiciary when compared with the effect of two relevant factors, corruption and evaluations of the political process, which we found to be highly relevant for the Spanish case as well
Summary
Political trust is in decline in many contemporary democracies. The growing literature on political trust has already taught us much about the manifold causes of this downturn. Other scholars have stressed the significance of the shortcomings of the political process (Grimes, 2006; Van der Meer, 2010; Hakhverdian and Mayne, 2012; Chang, 2013; Bauhr and Grimes, 2014; Torcal, 2017; Van der Meer and Hakhverdian, 2017). These shortcomings are manifested in citizens’ perceptions that political actors are not responsive to their demands and concerns which, in turn, have a negative effect on political trust (Torcal 2014; Linde and Peters, 2020). Political trust has been linked to political corruption (Della Porta, 2000; Pharr, 2000; Uslaner, 2002; Uslaner, 2017)
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