Political Trust Research Articles

Political trust and economic development in European regions

AbstractThis paper examines the complex relationship between political and social trust, government quality, and economic development across 208 regions in the European Union (EU). We use a pooled data generalized structural equation model (GSEM) to show that political trust serves as a fundamental driver of regional economic development in the EU. Political trust is, in turn, influenced by both social trust and government quality. Social trust and government quality have quadratic effects on political trust, showing diminishing returns, while the effect of political trust on economic development is linear. Political trust mediates the relationship between social trust and economic development entirely, while government quality retains a direct relationship with economic development. These findings underscore the fundamental role that political trust plays as a mechanism through which both formal and informal institutions shape regional development.

Procedural inclusiveness can mitigate trust challenges in environmental policymaking

ABSTRACT Decreasing political trust poses severe challenges, particularly in policy domains where solutions to societal problems are urgently needed. The reason is that low trust decreases citizens' support for policy interventions. Since trust is difficult to increase in the short to medium term, this study explores how negative trust effects on policy support could be mitigated through policymaking procedures. We connect literature on policy design processes and trust to argue that involving broader actor coalitions when designing a policy is likely to mitigate the negative trust effect on public policy support. We test this argument with an empirical focus on environmental policy, based on data from a survey experiment in Switzerland (N = 6116). Our study design combines a choice experiment with treatment conditions for procedural inclusiveness and various levels of policy stringency with a novel approach to measuring trust. The main finding is that greater inclusiveness in terms of engaging a broader actor coalition in the policy design process reduces otherwise negative effects of low trust on policy support. The main policy implication is that political trust challenges are not a predicament for failure in addressing urgent societal problems but can be offset by including broad actor coalitions in policy design processes.

Political spillover effects of environmental policy: Evidence from China

This paper explores the causal relationship between automatic environmental monitoring and political trust. We utilize staggered monitoring automation as exogenous shocks to assess the impact on residents' political trust. Our findings reveal a significant and positive effect of monitoring automation on political trust, a factor rarely considered by most existing studies. The mechanism investigation shows that monitoring automation has heightened residents' environmental concerns and increased their expectations regarding the government's role in pollution prevention. This paper offers a pioneering quantitative assessment of feedback from residents due to a specific environmental policy, suggesting that potential spillover effect should be considered.

Does social capital enhance political participation in older adults? Multi-level evidence from the European Quality of Life Survey

This study explored the role of social capital for non-institutionalised and institutionalised political participation among older adults compared to younger age groups using European Quality of Life Survey data (EQLS) from 2016 and 33 countries (n = 36,908). Multilevel logistic regression analysis was employed to assess the association between individual- and country-level social capital and political participation. Findings revealed that, at the individual level, active associational engagement was positively related to both forms of political participation, while social trust and political trust were linked only to non-institutionalised participation—higher social trust and lower political trust were associated with a greater likelihood of participation. Country-level associational engagement was related to non-institutionalised political participation and country-level political trust with institutionalised participation. For older adults, active associational engagement had stronger individual and contextual effects on non-institutionalised political participation. These results enrich our understanding of political engagement in later life and highlight the unexplored potential for civic involvement among older adults.

Political trust and redistribution preferences

ABSTRACT How does political trust influence policy preferences? A large literature posits that trust is vital for supporting governments in managing fundamental societal challenges and investing in long-term policy making. This paper investigates the relationship between political trust and policy preferences, specifically redistribution preferences. Through four pre-registered, original survey experiments conducted over two years in the UK and long-term panel data spanning 19 years in Switzerland, I demonstrate that political trust has an insignificant and negligible impact on individuals’ preferences for redistribution, even when trust is experimentally manipulated under theoretically favourable conditions. By combining two designs with improved causal identification than the existing literature, these results challenge prevailing theories linking political trust and policy preferences and highlight the need for further examination of the complex dynamics between citizens’ attitudes and support for government policy.

Risks of Institutionalization of the Central Asia-China Format for Solidarity and Political Trust in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization

The article considers the risks of institutionalizing the format of the Central Asia-China dialogue («C+C5») for solidarity and mutual political trust within the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). According to the documents, institutionalization is aimed at transforming the «C+C5» format into a full-fledged international intergovernmental organization with functions that duplicate the existing ones within the SCO. In the current official documents, Russia declares the importance of SCO development and assigns it a special role in the implementation of the «Turn to the East» Policy, the development of the «Greater Eurasian Partnership », and the deployment of the project of «the North-South International Transport Corridor». In this regard, further institutionalization of the «C+C5» format may create restrictions for the realization of these Russian plans and even for the protection of interests in the Central Asian region (CAR). This circumstance, coupled with the active attempts of the West and the United States to force a number of CAR countries to refuse Russia’s assistance in circumventing the sanctions regime is unlikely to be understood in Moscow. This means that it is necessary to think about the ways to overcome the likely limitations by deepening the dialogue with China on the issues of further development of the SCO and increasing its effectiveness. The plans to institutionalize the «C+C5» format may also cause increased opposition from other major global «players» such as the United States, India, the EU and Japan, which have been actively involved in Central Asian Affairs in recent years, developing formats for dialogue between «1 + C5» (CAR countries).

Building democratic resilience: the impact of political engagement during education on xenophobia and political trust

Building democratic resilience: the impact of political engagement during education on xenophobia and political trust

Cultivating stakeholders’ willingness to participate in sustainable tourism development: A research proposition

This study aims to evaluate the role of community stakeholders in fostering sustainability within tourism development, with a focus on Langkawi, Malaysia. It seeks to propose a comprehensive model that highlights the influence of residents' perceptions (as key stakeholders) of community empowerment, political trust, and place attachment on their support for sustainable tourism. This study proposes a conceptual framework based on stakeholder theory and conducts a thorough examination of stakeholders' perspectives on tourism development, considering both positive and negative impacts. A comprehensive literature review is adopted in this research. The study reveals nuanced insights into stakeholders' attitudes towards tourism development and sustainability. It identifies the intricate interplay between perceptions of community empowerment, political trust, place attachment, and support for sustainable tourism initiatives, contributing to a deeper understanding of the dynamics surrounding sustainable tourism. Findings indicate that positive perceptions of benefits encourage active resident engagement in STD. Practical implications suggest that local authorities, destination managers, and policymakers should prioritize involving residents in tourism planning, building trust, and empowering communities. By addressing both social and environmental concerns, sustainable tourism can ensure long-term success and balance development with conservation. The proposed model lays the groundwork for future empirical analyses to yield meaningful insights for governments and tourism planners, facilitating informed policy-making and decision-making processes regarding residents and tourism development in developing nations.

Citizens’ perceptions of online abuse directed at politicians: Evidence from a survey experiment

AbstractOnline abuse is becoming an increasingly pressing issue for democratic societies. Citizens play an important role in curtailing abuse as they often moderate online content through counter speech and by reporting abusive messages. However, we know little about when citizens actually perceive negative comments directed at politicians as being abusive, and the factors shaping these perceptions are also understudied. In this study, we therefore investigate how citizens perceive criticism, insults, threats and sexist remarks directed at politicians on social media. Based on a survey experiment with 2,000 Danish citizens, we show that citizens’ assessments of the abusiveness of such remarks are not only affected by the content of the messages, but also by political ideology, political trust and gender. Surprisingly, partisanship does not seem to substantively affect perceptions of abuse. Our study provides novel insights into what exactly citizens consider to be abusive behaviour on social media.

Application of Topic Modelling Technology to the Analysis of Social Media Comments in the Context of State Identity Politics Research

In the situation of a shrinking field of public politics and a crisis of political trust, citizens may seek an alternative arena for presenting their own point of view. The social Internet space serves as a virtual projection of public contradictions and acts as an arena for the presentation and confrontation of political interests. At the same time, the increasing state presence in virtual space and the growing trust to online sources of information make social media an important channel for promoting certain patterns of political interpretations. The aim of this paper is to analyse the reactions of social media users to discover their attitudes towards the main narratives of contemporary identity politics of the Russian state. We used the Topic modelling method to study citizens’ reactions to various aspects of state identity politics. The total number of comments in the collected database is 8,023 (09/2022‑09/2023). In almost all the identified topics we can note the polarity of citizens’ opinions, examples of which are given in the article. However, there are a few topics where the users’ opinion is quite consolidated; for example, the image of the Crimean bridge on the cover of new textbooks was widely supported in comments, while the topic of traditional values, on the contrary, evokes negative feelings and shows “public tiredness”. Despite the limitations described in the conclusion of the article, the study demonstrates the high potential of applying the method of topic modelling to the analysis of the reactions of social media users.

Между «ratio» и «irratio»: в поисках оптимальной стратегии изучения доверия в политическом пространстве

The literature on political trust currently continues to be dominated by the cognitive approach, whose adherents perceive trust as a function of political knowledge and social experience. In turn, the psycho-emotional foundations of political trust (personality traits, psychological needs and emotions) are still in the shadow of the cognitive revolution and remain poorly understood. The article attempts to justify the need to study political trust not only as a rational-evaluative construct, but also as a complex psycho-emotional phenomenon that arises at the intersection of cognitive and affective processes occurring at the conscious and subconscious levels. Having consistently analyzed three approaches to understanding the nature of political trust — as knowledge, as heuristics and as affect — the author elaborates his definition of this phenomenon, describing it as a specific psycho-emotional state that accumulates knowledge about objects of political space, emotionally and symbolically significant images of politicians and institutions formed in the process of socialization, as well as the confidence that the expectations arising on this basis will be met to one degree or another in the future. Moving from the conceptual to the empirical level, he examines survey and experimental strategies for distinguishing between cognitive and affective foundations of trust, revealing their possibilities and limitations. The final part of the article outlines potential further directions for research in the field of political trust. According to the author, agent-based modeling is extremely promising in this regard, as it allows looking at the cognitive and affective bases of political trust as a single whole, where cognitive and affective processes are closely interconnected and capable of moving from one state to another.

“It’s All Closer and More Personal to Me”: The Meaning of Closeness for Migration-Related Civic Engagement of Czech Adolescents

The lack of trust in politics and poor civic engagement challenge both new and established democracies. To tackle this challenge, it is necessary to understand what motivates new generations of citizens to become civically engaged. We contribute to discussions about this issue by offering a qualitative, in-depth exploration of adolescents’ motivations for civic engagement, focusing specifically on the issue of migration. Drawing on data from four critical focus groups conducted with adolescents (17–19 years old) in Czechia, we ask how their perspectives on migration translate into motivation for migration-related civic engagement. Utilizing the theoretical perspective and interpretative approach of cultural sociology, we look for the meanings that sustain their personal motivation to become engaged. We find that feelings of closeness to the issue of migration act as an essential driver of adolescents’ personal motivation for engagement, making migration an issue of concern to them. We further distinguish between cultural closeness and closeness of contact and identify distinct mechanisms through which these forms of closeness translate into adolescents’ concerns about the issue of migration. Based on our findings, we call for greater consideration of the role of culture and local context in the research on adolescents’ motivations for civic engagement.

Race, Inequality, and Political Trust in Latin America

Abstract During the last decades, political distrust has seemingly become a common trend across Latin American democracies, however, differences in the levels of confidence among groups have also been identified. This article considers the potential effects of ethno-racial structures and their interactions with other forms of socioeconomic inequalities on political trust. Building on data from four waves of the Latinobarometer project and contextual measures from different sources, we analyze these relations and find that both socioeconomic and ethno-racial inequalities affect political trust and impact on the formation of different relations with the political system across Latin America. Furthermore, in particular it is found that at the individual-level interactions between inequalities shape political trust differently depending on the particular ethno-racial identification. These findings contribute to the understanding of ethnicity and race and its associations with other structural inequalities in shaping mass political culture.

A matter of trust? Analyzing the relationship between attitudes toward COVID‐19 countermeasures and right‐wing ideology in Germany

AbstractThe COVID‐19 pandemic has divided societies, especially regarding vaccine mandates. While research suggests that political ideology plays a crucial role in whether people support or oppose COVID‐19 countermeasures, the relationship between these attitudes and political ideology remains unclear, with varying results across different countries. The present research focuses on right‐wing authoritarianism (RWA) in Germany, examining its role as a predictor. Prior studies highlight that, conservatives and right‐wing authoritarians, particularly in the USA, tend to hold more negative attitudes toward COVID‐19 countermeasures despite RWA's usual association with unwavering support for state authorities. Therefore, the present survey study (N = 1063) investigated whether trust in politics and science moderates this relationship. Contrary to expectations, the findings revealed that RWA consistently predicted support for vaccine mandates independent of trust levels. Results are discussed about the specifics of the German case and more general relationships between political ideology and the support of state authorities.

Moving beyond us-versus-them polarization towards constructive conversations

ABSTRACT The global surge of political polarization poses a significant threat to liberal democracies. The prevailing “us-versus-them” mentality prevents leaders from effectively addressing societal issues. While intergroup dialogue shows promise in bridging divisions among diverse identity groups, the dynamics of real-life conversations between individuals with opposing political identities remain underexplored. This study investigates a unique case study of constructive face-to-face interactions among American political elites on a contentious issue. By examining how opposing leaders collaborate towards shared goals, the research identifies communicative actions that can reduce polarization. This study delves into the complex dynamics of polarization, as both an issue-based and identity-based conflict, focusing on interactional framing strategies leaders use to navigate their differences. The findings reveal that political leaders bridge ideological divides by embracing multiple frames, reconnecting conflicting frames, and developing neutral non-political frames. They also foster positive relations, use superordinate identities, and decrease social distance, thereby bridging their identity gap. By fostering convergence rather than accentuating differences, they effectively counteract polarization. Studying rare examples of constructive bipartisan collaboration offers valuable insights into reducing polarization, restoring political trust among the general public, and mitigating broader societal impacts, ultimately strengthening the foundations of a healthy democracy.

Does land expropriation to neighbors affect the enrollment of bystanders in pension programs?

Land expropriation can incur not only economic costs but also political costs. Using panel data from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS), we investigate the impact of land expropriation on the compliance behaviors of rural residents for the New Rural Pension Scheme (NRPS), which is an extremely important public policy led by the government in China. To exclude the potential confounding impacts of reduced social security levels resulting from land expropriation, we focus on farmers in the same village who have not suffered land expropriation. The results of the difference-in-differences (DID) regression model suggest that land expropriation significantly reduces the probability of farmers within the same village, who have not suffered land expropriation, enrolling in the NRPS. The primary reasons are that land expropriation significantly decreases the trust of non-land expropriated farmers in local officials and the NRPS. Additionally, land expropriation has a stronger impact on unexpropriated farmers with lower levels of education, as well as unexpropriated households without Communist Party of China membership or with a high level of dependence on agriculture. Our findings suggest the cost of land expropriation is larger than previously thought, as it generates broader political trust and policy compliance issues.

Religious coping with contingency as a resource for democracy?

AbstractThis quantitative study empirically examines the mediating factors between Christian religiosity, political trust, and populist attitudes. As a novel approach, we ask whether religious coping with contingency reduces anxiety among religious citizens. Given that anxiety can reduce institutional trust and increase the appeal of populism, religiously reduced anxiety could support democratic attitudes. In addition, generalized social trust and acceptance of immigration are tested as further mediators between Christian religiosity and its political outcomes. Based on a recent representative sample of the German population (6th Membership Survey of the Protestant and Roman Catholic Churches in Germany), regression analyses find limited evidence for the coping thesis. Overall, religious coping, generalized social trust, and acceptance of immigration together explain to a large extent the higher prevalence of political trust and the lower prevalence of populist attitudes among liberal Christians in Germany.

The impacts of new propaganda media use on youth's political socialization

ABSTRACT Given the critical role of media in political socialization, the relationship between media use and political trust has attracted considerable attention from Western scholars. To examine the media mobilization effect in contemporary China, this paper aims to investigate how the use of New Propaganda Media (NPM) by youth relates to their patriotism and political trust based on a cross-sectional study conducted by cluster random sampling among Chinese youth in 31 provinces (N = 3011). Results indicated that (1) NPM use, in generally, positively predicts patriotism and political trust; (2) the intensity of patriotism mediates the connection between NPM use and political trust; and (3) usage of official media, social media and learning media has a positive impact on political trust, while the effect of entertainment media use is not significant. Our findings contributed to a better understanding of the effect of NPM on political trust and provide theoretical and practical significance in media mobilization and youth's political socialization of future research.

Political trust and public support for climate policy in Europe: the role of perceptions about politicians’ competence and integrity

While previous studies on the relationship between political trust and support for climate policy have focused on the evaluative component of trust, namely whether politicians and the political system can be trusted or not, less is known about the role of different dimensions of trustworthiness that underlie such evaluations. In this study, we examine how perceptions about politicians’ competence and integrity, two central dimensions of trustworthiness, are related to public support for climate policies. Using survey data from four European countries (Sweden, Germany, Spain, and Poland), we find that people who think that politicians are competent are generally more likely to support climate policy. In contrast, we do not find such a relationship between integrity perceptions (e.g., corruption) and policy attitudes. These findings are consistent across national contexts and hold even when alternating the measures capturing competence and integrity perceptions. To bolster public support for climate policies, climate communication should prioritize addressing public concerns regarding politicians’ competence in designing sound climate policies, rather than alleviating concerns about their integrity, such as fears of corruption.

Investigating Consumer’s Attitudes Toward New Carbon Tax Regulation in Indonesia

Abstract The Indonesian Government’s 2021 initiative to curb carbon emissions through carbon tax aims to influence the behavior of firms and consumers, particularly, those reliant on fossil fuels. Simultaneously, the carbon tax is envisaged as a means of generating state income and facilitating environmental investments. This research investigates Indonesian consumers’ attitudes toward the carbon tax through a representative survey, analyzing awareness, acceptance, and support levels as indicators and utilizing Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) with Partial Least Squares (PLS) program. The study explores opinions on the climate crisis and carbon tax, with a focus on Greater Jakarta. Preconceptions of climate change and their influence on attitudes are examined, along with socio-demographic characteristics shaping consumer behaviours. Findings reveal a heightened climate crisis awareness among the participants, however, a quarter remain unaware of the carbon tax enactment. Most consumers accept the tax, recognizing personal and industry responsibility for carbon reduction. Many are willing to contribute with tax rates of 1% to 3%. Policy recommendations include fostering political trust, progressive taxation on fossil fuels, and government incentives for carbon reduction. The study underscores the link between awareness, acceptance, and support for carbon tax implementation, suggesting further research on additional support indicators, including political trust.