Political trust

This article aims to understand the correlates of political trust by delving into the multiple interactive effects of education in democratic states throughout the world. It asks whether education raises political trust by increasing the stakes of the citizens in the system and whether education diminishes trust as a result of being abler to evaluate the existence of corruption in a given country. It also taps into how post-materialism as an individual-level factor affects this equation by activating critical judgments toward political institutions. The findings show that, indeed, the effect of education on political trust is very context-dependent. Political trust and education are positively correlated in more meritocratic countries and negatively correlated in the more corrupt ones. Post-material values, combined with educational attainment, tend to lower political trust to a certain extent yet this effect is surpassed by the presence or absence of meritocracy or political corruption. We also find that the effect of education on political trust becomes more pronounced as the level of education increases, with university graduates being the most susceptible to the effects of meritocracy and corruption on their trust levels.

The degree to which citizens perceive democratic political institutions as trustworthy indicates how well these institutions translate the citizenry’s interests into public policy and how effective and accountable they are seen to be. Low levels of public confidence in political institutions are an indicator of various political problems and are likely to raise concerns over democratic governance. Recent findings that trust in major political institutions has fallen over the last quarter of a century in many democracies have led scholars to examine individual and institutional factors associated with political confidence. Aiming to contribute to this burgeoning literature, this study investigates the impact of semi-presidentialism on public confidence in two major political institutions: the government and parliament. Testing our arguments in 29 democracies through a multi-level analysis, we found that, compared to presidential and parliamentary systems, semi-presidential systems often generate dual-legitimacy problems, thereby reducing confidence in both government and parliament.

Abstract: This paper extends Tyler's procedural justice model of public compliance with the law. Analysing data from a national probability sample of adults in England and Wales, we present a new conceptualisation of legitimacy based on not just the recognition of power but also the justification of power. We find that people accept the police's right to dictate appropriate behaviour, not only when they feel a duty to obey officers, but also when they believe that the institution acts according to a shared moral purpose with citizens. ...

In this article we study how trust in political institutions has evolved among Latin American countries. Contrary to previous studies that explain cross-sectional variation between countries, we examine how political trust has evolved within countries across time in the region. We base our empirical analysis in the Latinobarometer dataset, which contains relevant measures of political trust since 1996 onwards, and consider how both individual and contextual characteristics have possibly triggered (or not) changes in political trust among the population. Results from linear multi-level models indicate, among many other results, that: a) within-country variation in levels of political trust is larger than between-country variation for the period between 2002 and 2011; b) within-country variation in political trust is strongly influenced by changes in per capita income as well as by the ideological orientation of governments; and c) within-country variation in political trust also responds, though in a more moderate fashion, to changes in the level of economic inequality in country.

Trust and power between actors are two central concepts in social exchanges. Yet, studies investigating residents’ support for tourism using the social exchange theory have failed to consider these constructs simultaneously. This study tests a model of community support with the social exchange theory as its theoretical basis. Results indicate that support is determined by residents’ trust in government actors and perceived benefits. Trust is in turn predicted by residents’ perceived benefits and costs and their level of power. The theoretical contributions of the study emanate from the inclusion of the trust and power variables in the model. The practical implications of the findings and the limitations of the study are discussed. Some suggestions for future research are also made.

This article addresses the challenges of understanding, measuring and explaining political identities in post-1997 Hong Kong. It shows that national and local identities are better conceptualized as two distinct attitudes and captured with separate scaled items than as opposite poles of one attitude measured in a single categorical item. This approach reveals that the key shift occurred not in local identity, but in nationalistic sentiments, which have initially increased but are on a downward trend since 2008. It also shows that national and local identities were perceived as robustly compatible for most years since 1997, but have begun to drift apart in recent years. Considering competing accounts to explain national identity strength, trust in the central government stands out as the dominant factor. Discontent with livelihood conditions and socio-structural variables either have no significant effect or are to a large part the result of differences in political trust.

In this thought piece we take stock of and evaluate the nature of knowledge production in the field of trust research by examining the epistemologies of 167 leading trust scholars, who responded to a short survey. Following a brief review of major epistemological perspectives we discuss the nature of the prevalent views and their geographical distribution within our field. We call on trust researchers to engage in epistemological reflection, develop their own awareness of alternative epistemologies, and ensure their work draws on and cites relevant research contrary to their preferred epistemological approach. To support this we ask editors of relevant journals to foster pluralism in trust research, publishing work from a range of epistemologies.

This article seeks to gain a deeper understanding on the
relationship between polarisation and political trust in multiparty
systems by examining the effect of different indicators
of affective and ideological polarisation on the within-individual
variation of political trust over time. Using unique
data collected from two separate online survey panels in
Spain, our findings show that in multiparty contexts it is
important to use two different measures of affective polarisation,
as they have two distinct effects on political trust.
While in-group affective polarisation tends to increase political
trust, out-group polarisation has a negative impact on
within-individual levels of trust in all democratic institutions.
The latter effect is much stronger, adding nuance to existing
explanations of the overall decline in political trust observed
in many democracies in contemporary democracies.

Abstrak Tujuan tulisan ini adalah merumuskan strategi pencegahan korupsi di kepolisian yang bertujuan untuk membangun kondisi yang menghambat dan menurunkan perilaku korupsi di kepolisian dalam rangka mewujudkan trust. Untuk mewujudkan trust tersebut, tulisan ini mengajukan suatu model pencegahan korupsi di kepolisian yang dibangun melalui pendekatan perpolisian berorientasi pemecahan masalah (problem oriented policing-POP) dan pencegahan kejahatan. Pendekatan POP difokuskan pada upaya penanggulangan akar masalah secara kreatif, pengembangan solusi inovatif, dan pelibatan para pemangku kepentingan (benefeciaries) untuk mencegah korupsi di kepolisian, sedangkan pendekatan pencegahan kejahatan difokuskan pada perumusan intervensi dan pemantauan terhadap perilaku korupsi di kepolisian dam pelaksanaan pencegahan korupsi di kepolisian dengan melibatkan para pemangku kepentingan. Trust sebagai target dari strategi pencegahan korupsi di kepolisian yang menjadi pusat perhatian pada tulisan ini berorientasi pada kondisi organisasi kepolisian yang paripurna (excellence). Dua pendekatan dalam pencegahan korupsi di kepolisian menjadi dasar perencanaan program untuk mempersiapkan pondasi kepolisian yang bergerak menuju organisasi yang paripurna (strive to excellence). Adanya program yang bertujuan untuk membangun trust terhadap organisasi kepolisian yang memiliki sikap, perilaku, dan budaya non koruptif, merupakan prasyarat mutlak bagi organisasi kepolisian untuk mewujudkan keberhasilan Grand Strategi Polri secara keseluruhan. Tulisan ini mengajukan saran agar pencegahan korupsi di kepolisian mengedepankan tiga strategi utama, yaitu pengintegrasian program pencegahan korupsi di kepolisian kedalam kebijakan trust building Grand Strategi Polri, pemberdayaan peran kelembagaan dan kemampuan komunitas kepolisian, pembangunan kemitraan dan jaringan antar berbagai pihak untuk mendukung pelaksanaan program pencegahan korupsi di kepolisian.

Although theory suggests individuals are more willing to incur a personal cost to benefit in-group members, compared to out-group members, there is inconsistent evidence in support of this perspective. Applying meta-analytic techniques, we harness a relatively recent explosion of research on intergroup discrimination in cooperative decision making to address several fundamental unresolved issues. First, summarizing evidence across studies, we find a small to medium effect size indicating that people are more cooperative with in-group, compared to out-group, members (d = 0.32). Second, we forward and test predictions about the conditions that moderate in-group favoritism from two influential perspectives – a social identity approach and a bounded generalized reciprocity perspective. Although we find evidence for a slight tendency for in-group favoritism through categorization with no mutual interdependence between group members (e.g., dictator games, d = 0.19), situations that contain interdependence result in stronger in-group favoritism (e.g., social dilemmas, d = 0.42). We also find that in-group favoritism is stronger when there is common (versus unilateral) knowledge of group membership, and stronger during simultaneous (versus sequential) exchanges. Third, we find support for the hypothesis that intergroup discrimination in cooperation is the result of in-group favoritism rather than out-group derogation. Finally, we test for additional moderators of in-group favoritism, such as the percentage of men in the sample, experimental versus natural groups, and the country of participants. We discuss the implications of these findings for theoretical perspectives on in-group favoritism, address implications for the methodologies used to study this phenomenon, and suggest directions for future research.

We applied the "informed citizen" thesis to public confidence in the police in the Philippines-a topic that has surprisingly received little research attention. We analyzed four waves of survey data from the Asian Barometer Survey (ABS), and we applied propensity score matching (PSM) method and regression models to the data. We oper-ationalized education, interest in politics, and Internet usage as indicators of an informed citizen. We tested whether they are predictive of confidence in the police. Confidence in the Philippine police has gradually improved from 2002 to 2014. Regression analysis found that citizens with more education and more Internet usage displayed lower levels of confidence in the Philippine police. We also found that an interaction effect between education and political interests, with education having a stronger connection to confidence in the police among those with greater political interests. Our findings support the informed citizen thesis and shed new light on the study of confidence in the Philippine police.

Jämförelser mellan tidigmodern och modern tid är ovanliga inom forskning om diplomati. Att centrala begrepp som stat och diplomat är anpassade för ett västerländskt system som egentligen inte var i funktion förrän efter 1815 motverkar sådana försök, och anakronistiska definitioner riskerar att dölja en mångfald av diplomatiska aktörer och strategier.
Men rumsliga och tidsliga skillnader inom diplomati har också överdrivits. Därför presenterar historikerna Susanna Erlandsson och Sari Nauman i den här diskussionsboken en begreppsapparat som möjliggör såväl diakrona som synkrona jämförelser av diplomatiska praktiker. Sökljuset riktas bort från stater och officiella aktörer, som är svåra att definiera för tidigare perioder, mot individuella aktörer och deras personliga relationer med varandra. Frågan om hur individerna gör för att skapa tillit inom den diplomatiska relationen placeras i fokus. Medan behovet av tillit ständigt är aktuellt, är metoderna för att uppnå den kontextberoende. Därmed möjliggör begreppsapparaten såväl jämförelser över tid och rum som studier av kontinuitet och förändring.
Begreppsapparaten testas av sex framstående diplomatihistoriker på skilda historiska perioder och kontexter. Tillsammans demonstrerar de begreppens potential och deras fortsatta utmaningar.

Trust is widely considered a critical resource for modern societies, and in times of crisis like the coronavirus pandemic, its importance is even greater: More than ever we depend on fellow citizens to behave responsibly, and on institutional actors to make the right decisions. Looking at trust from an existential security point of view, this paper investigates trust’s relationship with pandemic-induced insecurities. We explore how levels of social trust (trust in strangers) and institutional trust (trust in the government and in the public healthcare system) have de-veloped over the pandemic period, and how trust relates to individuals’ experiences of sickness and economic hardship as well as respective fears. Using panel data from Germany and the United Kingdom for 2020 and 2021, we find that average levels of trust have remained quite stable. Nevertheless, whereas individuals’ social trust is largely unrelated to insecurities, insti-tutional trust is strengthened by health-related insecurities and weakened by economic inse-curities. In both countries, pandemic-induced fears matter more for institutional trust than experienced insecurities. Our results indicate the importance of expectation management, and suggest that the economic and health implications of the pandemic should be regarded as sep-arate challenges.

En el contexto de la relevancia de la confianza política para la gobernabilidad democrática, se ofrece un estado del arte basado en 52 trabajos publicados en los últimos diez años en bases de datos latinoamericanas e internacionales, acerca del factor mediático implicado en ello. El documento reseña la función de la confianza para la democracia y las principales teorías que explican su variación temporal. Centrándose en la explicación específicamente mediática, se explicitan las vertien-tes clásicas y contemporáneas de los efectos de los medios a este respecto, así como los trabajos empíricos que las apoyan o refutan. El artículo concluye con una reseña de las principales metodologías implementadas para su estudio, así como una reflexión crítica acerca de las lagunas de conocimiento e insuficiencias encontradas en la revisión, como punto de partida para nuevas pesquisas.