scholarly journals Distributive and Procedural Justice and Political Trust in Europe

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Schnaudt ◽  
Caroline Hahn ◽  
Elias Heppner
Keyword(s):  
Procedural Justice ◽  
Political Trust ◽  
European Social Survey ◽  
Clear Understanding ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
Principles Of Justice ◽  
Democratic Systems ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship

Previous research underlines that a political system's adherence to principles of distributive and procedural justice stimulates citizens' political trust. Yet, most of what is known about the relationship between justice and political trust is derived from macro-level indicators of distributive and procedural justice, merely presuming that citizens connect a political system's adherence to justice principles to their trust in political authorities and institutions. Accordingly, we still lack a clear understanding of whether and how individual perceptions and evaluations of distributive and procedural justice influence citizens' political trust and how their impact might be conditioned by a political system's overall adherence to principles of justice. In addition, previous research has implicitly assumed that the link between justice principles and political trust operates identically for all major political authorities and institutions, disregarding the possibility that citizens evaluate representative and regulative authorities and institutions on the basis of different justice criteria. Against this background, the aims of the present study are (1) to investigate the impact of individual evaluations of distributive and procedural justice on citizens' political trust, (2) to analyze to what extent the effects of justice evaluations on political trust depend on political systems' overall adherence to principles of distributive and procedural justice, and (3) to assess whether and in which ways the influence of justice evaluations differs for trust in representative and regulative authorities and institutions. Our empirical analysis covering more than 30,000 respondents from 27 European countries based on data from the European Social Survey (ESS) and the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) project demonstrates that (1) more positive evaluations of distributive and procedural justice foster citizens' political trust, that (2) the impact of justice evaluations on political trust is amplified in political systems in which the overall adherence to justice principles is compromised, and that (3) different facets of distributive and procedural justice evaluations exert varying effects on citizens' trust in representative as compared to regulative authorities and institutions. These findings entail important implications with regard to the relation between justice and political trust and the general viability of modern democratic systems.

What determines the trust of immigrants in criminal justice institutions in Europe?

2012 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 370-387 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antje Röder ◽  
Peter Mühlau
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
First Generation ◽  
Country Of Origin ◽  
European Social Survey ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
First Generation Immigrants ◽  
Second Generation Immigrants ◽  
First And Second Generation ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship

This study examines whether the confidence of immigrants in European countries in criminal justice institutions can be explained by two counteracting processes: expectations formed in the country of origin and discrimination experienced in the residence country. The study draws on the pooled waves of the European Social Survey (2002–8), comparing first- and second-generation immigrants from 66 countries of origin with natives in 21 residence countries. Multi-level regressions are employed to examine the relationship between confidence in institutions and proxy variables for the processes under study. The data strongly support the hypothesis that the high confidence of first-generation immigrants can be explained by frames of reference formed in the country of origin. Some, but limited, support is also found for the impact of discrimination.

Ideological Biases Weaken the Impact of Social Trust on Ethnic Outgroup Threat

2019 ◽  
Vol 68 (2) ◽  
pp. 523-540
Author(s):  
Jens Peter Frølund Thomsen ◽  
Arzoo Rafiqi
Keyword(s):  
Political Ideology ◽  
Fixed Effects ◽  
Social Trust ◽  
Motivated Reasoning ◽  
European Social Survey ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
Immigrants And Refugees ◽  
Fixed Effects Regression ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship

Previous studies have not examined whether (personal) political ideology influences how trusters perceive of immigrants and refugees as a threat. Our contribution to the literature builds on theories of motivated reasoning and hypothesizes that political ideology weakens the ability of social trust to reduce perceived (ethnic) outgroup threat. Indeed, analyses show that the relationship between social trust and perceived outgroup threat is considerably weaker among rightists than among leftists. Although social trust does relate negatively to perceived outgroup threat across the ideological divide, political ideology has a constraining influence that cannot be ignored. Social trust is also a political phenomenon. We apply a fixed-effects regression, and analyses are based on the 2014-European Social Survey, including 21 countries and 32,175 individuals. In the concluding section, we discuss the full implications of our findings for theories of social trust in an era of increasing flows of immigrants and refugees that go beyond the usual gateway nations.

scholarly journals Balancing flexibility and security in Europe? The impact of unemployment on young peoples’ subjective well-being

2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 243-261 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helen Russell ◽  
Janine Leschke ◽  
Mark Smith
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Job Insecurity ◽  
Well Being ◽  
European Social Survey ◽  
Subjective Well Being ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
Job Instability ◽  
Unemployment Spells ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship

We examine the relationship between ‘flexicurity’ systems, unemployment and well-being outcomes for young people in Europe. A key tenet of the flexicurity approach is that greater flexibility of labour supply supports transitions into employment, trading longer-term employment stability for short-term job instability. However, there is a risk that young people experience greater job insecurity, both objective and subjective, with less stable contracts and more frequent unemployment spells. Our research draws on data from the European Social Survey and uses multi-level models to explore whether and how flexibility-security arrangements moderate the effect of past and present unemployment on the well-being of young people. We distinguish between flexibility-security institutions that foster improved job prospects and those that provide financial security.

scholarly journals The corrosive effect of corruption on trust in politicians: Evidence from a natural experiment

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 205316801771418 ◽  
Author(s):  
Macarena Ares ◽  
Enrique Hernández
Keyword(s):  
Natural Experiment ◽  
Causal Effect ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Political Trust ◽  
European Social Survey ◽  
Corrosive Effect ◽  
Negative Effect ◽  
Survey Interviews ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship

Empirical studies do not provide a univocal answer about the effects of corruption on political attitudes and behaviour. Focusing on the relationship between corruption and political trust, in this article we explore whether real-world corruption scandals have a negative causal effect on trust in politicians; whether the impact of scandals decays over time; and whether corruption scandals have a weaker impact among the supporters of the party involved in the scandal. We address these questions through a natural experiment generated by the coincidence of the uncovering of a corruption scandal in Spain (the Bárcenas scandal) and the fieldwork of the European Social Survey. Given that the day at which survey interviews were conducted is as-if random, the uncovering of the scandal represents a unique opportunity to assess the causal effect of corruption on individuals’ trust in politicians. The results indicate that: (i) the corruption scandal had a substantial negative effect on trust in politicians; (ii) the effect of the scandal was stronger in the days following its disclosure; (iii) the effect of the scandal was independent from individuals’ partisan preferences.

In sickness and in health

2015 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 28-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Söderlund ◽  
Lauri Rapeli
Keyword(s):  
Political Engagement ◽  
European Social Survey ◽  
Poor Health ◽  
Personal Health ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
Dependent Variables ◽  
Health Gap ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Politically Active

In search of a better understanding of inequalities in citizen political engagement, scholars have begun addressing the relationship between personal health and patterns of political behavior. This study focuses on the impact of personal health on various forms of political participation. The analysis contributes to existing knowledge by examining a number of different participation forms beyond just voting. Using European Social Survey data from 2012/2013 for Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden ($N=8\text{,}060$), self-reported turnout and six alternative modes of political engagement were modeled as dependent variables. Contrary to expectations, poor health did not depress participation across all forms. As assumed by the increased activism hypothesis, all else equal, people with poor health were more active than their healthy counterparts in direct contacts with power holders and demonstrations. The results reveal a “reversed health gap” by showing that people with health problems are in fact more politically active than what previous research, which has focused on voting, has suggested. Although the magnitude of the gap should not be overdramatized, our results stress the importance of distinguishing between different forms of participation when analyzing the impact of health on political engagement. Nevertheless, the findings show that poor health can stimulate people into political engagement rather than depressing activity. This finding holds when the effects of several sociodemographic and motivational factors are controlled for.

scholarly journals Immigration and Trust in Politics in Britain

2011 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 163-185 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lauren McLaren
Keyword(s):  
Political Trust ◽  
European Social Survey ◽  
Interactive Effects ◽  
Election Study ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Impact

A previously overlooked explanation for varying individual levels of political trust is concern about immigration. This article examines the effect of concern about immigration on political trust in Britain, where levels of opposition to immigration have remained high since the 1960s and yet the implications of such opposition are still unclear. Using the pre-election and post-election panel component of the 2005 British Election Study and the 2002–03 European Social Survey, the author shows, after controlling for other predictors of trust in politics, that concerns about the impact of immigration significantly affect political trust. In addition, in 2005 the perception that government had not handled the issue of immigration effectively also significantly affected political trust, with both linear and interactive effects.

scholarly journals Investigating the Relation of Functioning as A Determinant of Wellbeing to Political and Social Trust in Three Balkan Countries

2021 ◽  
Vol 59 (1) ◽  
pp. 209-231
Keyword(s):  
Social Trust ◽  
Political Legitimacy ◽  
Political Trust ◽  
European Social Survey ◽  
Demographic Variables ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
Trust In Institutions ◽  
Balkan Countries ◽  
The Stability

The measurement of wellbeing, political trust in institutions and social trust provide important indicators of the welfare of nations, political legitimacy and the stability of democratic political systems, and a country’s political culture, respectively. In this paper, the relation of functioning as a determinant of wellbeing to political and social trust was investigated using 2012 European Social Survey (ESS) datasets of three Balkan countries: Albania, Bulgaria and Kosovo. This involves first examining the structure of functioning and assess the psychometric properties of the resulting scale (or subscales). Preliminary tests explored the statistically significant relations of functioning to the political and social trust items as well as the socio-demographic variables and the left/right self-placement scale. Only in the case of the Bulgarian dataset, EFA and CFA resulted in a unidimensional valid and reliable scale measuring functioning scale comprised of all the initial eight items. Although the analysis did not result in the same structure of functioning for the three Balkan countries, it did provide a reliable and valid scale in the cases of Bulgaria and Kosovo. This work could be extended to cover all participating countries of this Round of the ESS.

scholarly journals Rebuilding Trust in Broken Systems? Populist Party Success and Citizens’ Trust in Democratic Institutions

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 45-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marlene Mauk
Keyword(s):  
Political System ◽  
Political Trust ◽  
European Social Survey ◽  
Government Performance ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
Development Indicators ◽  
Democratic Quality ◽  
Short Run ◽  
Populist Party

What effect does the recent rise of populist parties harnessing an anti-system rhetoric have on political trust? Will citizens become disenchanted with and lose trust in the political system, or could populist party success even stimulate a growth of political trust? Arguing that populist parties may well be conceived as a corrective force giving voice to and addressing citizen concerns about the established political system, this contribution hypothesizes that populist party success will increase political trust among the general public, especially in countries lacking democratic quality, with weak corruption control, and meagre government performance. Empirically, it combines ParlGov data with survey data from the European Social Survey (2002–2016) as well as aggregate data from the Varieties-of-Democracy project and the World Development Indicators to investigate how political trust has changed in relation to the growing success of populist parties and how democratic quality, corruption control, and government performance have moderated this relationship in 23 European democracies. Its main findings indicate that, at least in the short run, political trust increases rather than decreases following populist party success and that this increase in trust is most pronounced in political systems that lack democratic quality, struggle with corruption, and deliver only meager government performance.

scholarly journals Unemployment and political trust across 24 Western democracies: Evidence on a welfare state paradox

2021 ◽  
pp. 000169932110085
Author(s):  
Carlotta Giustozzi ◽  
Markus Gangl
Keyword(s):  
General Social Survey ◽  
Political Trust ◽  
European Social Survey ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Probability Models ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
Negative Effect ◽  
Linear Probability ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Generous Welfare

Set against the backdrop of the Great Recession, the paper explores the interplay of unemployment experiences and political trust in the USA and 23 European countries between 2002 and 2017. Drawing on harmonized data from the European Social Survey and the General Social Survey, we confirm that citizens’ personal experiences of unemployment depress trust in democratic institutions in all countries. Using multilevel linear probability models, we show that the relationship between unemployment and political trust varies between countries, and that, paradoxically, the negative effect of unemployment on political trust is consistently stronger in the more generous welfare states. This result holds while controlling for a range of other household and country-level predictors, and even in mediation models that incorporate measures of households’ economic situation to explain the negative effect of unemployment on trust. As expected, country differences in the generosity of welfare states are reflected in the degree to which financial difficulties are mediating the relationship between unemployment and political trust. Overlaying economic deprivation, however, cultural mechanisms of stigmatization or status deprivation seem to create negative responses to unemployment experiences, and these render the effect of unemployment on political trust increasingly negative in objectively more generous welfare states.

scholarly journals Estimating the impact of social isolation on subjective health in Europe

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emiliano Sironi ◽  
Amelie Nadine Wolff
Keyword(s):  
Social Isolation ◽  
Subjective Health ◽  
European Social Survey ◽  
Perceived Health Status ◽  
Variable Model ◽  
Significant Deterioration ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
Using Data ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractWe investigate the relationship between social isolation and subjective health, considering that this relationship is potentially affected by endogeneity due to the presence of self-reported measures. Thus, if an increase in social isolation may impact the perception on health, alternative paths of causality may also be hypothesized. Using data from round 7 of the European Social Survey, we estimate an instrumental variable model in which isolation is explained as being a member of an ethnic minority and having experienced some serious family conflicts in the past. Our results confirm that changes in social isolation influence subjective general health. In particular, greater isolation produces a strong and significant deterioration of the perceived health status. With respect to the literature on social isolation and health, we try to advance it by supporting a path of causality running from social isolation to subjective health.

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