The Autocratic Trust Bias: Politically Sensitive Survey Items and Self-Censorship

Abstract

I am grateful to Staffan I. Lindberg, Ellen Lust, Beth Simmons, Anja Neundorf, Mattias Agerberg and participants of the 2017 V-Dem Research Conference for valuable comments and suggestions. This research project was supported by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond, Grant M13-0559:1, PI: Staffan I. Lindberg, V-Dem Institute, University of Gothenburg, Sweden; by Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation to Wallenberg Academy Fellow Staffan I. Lindberg, Grant 2013.0166, V-Dem Institute, University of Gothenburg, Sweden; by European Research Council, Grant 724191, PI: Staffan I. Lindberg, V-Dem Institute, University of Gothenburg, Sweden; by the Swedish Research Council, Grant 439-2014-38, PI: Pam Fredman, Vice-Chancellor, University of Gothenburg, Sweden; as well as by internal grants from the Vice-Chancellor’s office, the Dean of the College of Social Sciences, and the Department of Political Science at University of Gothenburg. We performed simulations and other computational tasks using resources provided by the Swedish National Infrastructure for Computing (SNIC) at the National Supercomputer Center in Sweden, SNIC 2016/1-382 and 2017/1-68. We specifically acknowledge the assistance of In-Saeng Suh at CRC and Johan Raber at SNIC in facilitating our use of their respective systems.