Crisis of trust: Socio-economic determinants of Europeans’ confidence in government

Abstract

Europeans' confidence in political institutions has dropped precipitously since the onset of the Euro-crisis in 2009. The decline in trust in government varies across countries and occupational and educational groups. Economic factors explain much of the cross-national and over-time variation. The baseline level of trust is influenced by a person's position in the labor market: across European countries, citizens with more education and higher levels of skills trust government more than those educational and occupational groups that have benefited less from European integration. Residents of debtor countries with high unemployment rates are also much less likely to trust national government than those in creditor countries that have fared better during the economic crisis, while the unemployed have lost faith in government to a greater degree than other parts of the population. Cultural, ideational, and political factors remain important for baseline levels of trust, but cannot explain the acute, asymmetrical decline in citizen trust observed over the last decade.

Global crises and populism: the role of Eurozone institutions*

“…Dustman et al (2017) highlight how the populist vote is related to this distrust in institutions and in particular EU institutions. Foster and Frieden (2017) nuance this result showing that this correlation is stronger in debtor countries. Colantone and Stanig (2017) have highlighted the significant role of the fear of the effects of globalization, the so called "China effect" in continental Europe.…”

Hin zu einer inklusiveren Zukunft

“…79 See Gidron and Hall (2017), The politics of social status: Economic and cultural roots of the populist right, To be published in British Journal of Sociology, vol 51, special issue, November. 80 See Foster and Frieden (2017) Snower (2017), The Dangerous Decoupling, downloaded via www.g20-insights.org.…”

Legal Corruption and Dissatisfaction with Democracy in the European Union

“…We argue that victimisation (in its different perspectives) is not determinant to explain increasing levels of DwD and, because of that, corruption should not be regarded solely as an individual-level problématique. Considering responses from 23 waves of the Eurobarometer (conducted during the period 2004-2015), Foster and Frieden (2017) have identified that ''economic factors explain much of the cross-national and over-time variation'' in trust for national governments in Europe. They have also explored pocketbook dimensions of trust and found that levels of education and employment matter to determine confidence in European governments.…”