Institutional Trust and Responsiveness in the EU

Torcal, Mariano; Bonet, Eduard; Lobo, Marina Costa

doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199602346.003.0005

Cited by 8 publications

(7 citation statements)

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“…Empirical studies of attitudes towards the EU show that there is both diffuse and specific support for the EU (Beaudonnet and Franklin, 2014;Eichenberg and Dalton, 2007;Gabel and Palmer, 1995;Gabel, 1998;Down and Wilson, 2017;Hobolt and de Vries, 2016;Hooghe and Marks, 2004;Ringlerova, 2015b;Serricchio et al, 2013;Torcal et al, 2012a;Torcal et al, 2012b). Since specific support and diffuse support are two distinct attitudes, they develop in different types of processes.…”

Section: Literature Review and Hypothesismentioning

confidence: 99%

Affective attachment to the EU: Questioning the importance of childhood socialization

Ringlerova

2020

European Union Politics

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In a time of rising Euroscepticism across Europe, diffuse support for the European Union (EU) is an especially important concept as it provides a source of stability for the EU. How important is childhood political socialization for the development of diffuse support? The extant literature emphasizes the role of childhood socialization. However, these studies are based on analyses that cannot fully distinguish between the cohort effect and the life-cycle effect. This study overcomes this limitation by looking at a more suitable case (the European Union) and by using a novel technique that effectively distinguishes the cohort effect from the life-cycle effect. The findings show that individuals who experienced early life political socialization in the EU have equal levels of diffuse support as individuals who grew up outside the EU. I thus argue that diffuse support develops through experience in adult life, and childhood political socialization is not essential for its development.

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Section: Literature Review and Hypothesismentioning

confidence: 99%

Affective attachment to the EU: Questioning the importance of childhood socialization

Ringlerova

2020

European Union Politics

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“…From an institutional point of view, this implies that political institutions pay attention to the public opinion, inform themselves about this opinion and act accordingly (Esaiasson et al 2015;Mansbridge 2003). Citizens are expected to take the (in)action of their political institutions into account when making up their mind about the trustworthiness of these institutions (Dunn 2015;Torcal et al 2012). Hence, individual assessments of whether the political system is responsive to one's own preferences should positively influence trust in political actors and institutions.…”

Section: Literature Review Political Trust: a Definition And The Role Of Perceived Responsivenessmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The questions focus on whether respondents thought that they had an impact on political decisions (or people similar to them). Empirically it has been common practice to use similar questions for operationalising perceived responsiveness (Kölln 2016;Torcal et al 2012). 5,6 Previous studies on political trust highlighted in this sense the important and positive impact of these indicators on political trust (e.g.…”

Section: Individual Levelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Economic inequality, perceived responsiveness and political trust

Goubin

2018

Acta Polit

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From a representation theory point of view, trust in political institutions is strongly related to the responsiveness of these institutions to citizens' preferences. However, is this also true when the political power of citizens is not equal, which is often the case in more unequal societies? In this article, it is argued that the link between perceptions of responsiveness to individual preferences and political trust differs across equal and unequal societies. We find that in inclusive societies, perceived political responsiveness is strongly related to political trust, whereas this link becomes weaker in more unequal societies. In other words, when economic inequality and exclusion are high, traditional accountability mechanisms between political actors and their citizens are less apparent. We speculate that this weaker link is due to habituation or a lack of political engagement, causing citizens to withdraw from political life altogether. The focus of this article lies on European and OECD-member countries. The study uses data from the International Social Survey Programme and the European Social Survey.

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“…Another branch of research suggests that support for the EU has a diffuse component as well. Multiple studies find that individuals’ feelings of European identity are a good predictor of support for the EU (Hooghe and Marks, 2004; Serricchio et al., 2013; Torcal et al., 2012a). Since identity is an affective feeling (Sanders et al., 2012), this evidence suggests that support for the EU is at least partly diffuse.…”

Section: Literature Review Theory and Hypothesesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although the scholarly literature shows a growing consensus that support for the EU has diffuse characteristics (Beaudonnet and Franklin, 2014; Hooghe and Marks, 2004; Serricchio et al., 2013; Torcal et al., 2012a), the empirical foundation for this consensus is rather limited. Virtually all evidence of diffuse support for the EU in the existing literature is based on cross-sectional comparative data.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Weathering the crisis: Evidence of diffuse support for the EU from a six-wave Dutch panel

Ringlerova

2015

European Union Politics

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Political regimes draw legitimacy from diffuse political support. How diffuse is support for the European Union? By focusing on cross-sectional data, the extant literature fails to demonstrate that support for the European Union displays the key defining characteristic of diffuse support: individual-level stability over a time of crisis. I use a six-wave panel data set from the Netherlands to study stability in support for the European Parliament during the 2008 economic crisis. I argue that public support for the European Parliament is highly diffuse. Using three analytical techniques, I find that individual-level support for the European Parliament remained highly stable from 2007 to 2012. These results suggest that in times of crisis, the European Union can draw on mass public support as a source of resilience.

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Institutional Trust and Responsiveness in the EU

Cited by 8 publications

References 0 publications

Affective attachment to the EU: Questioning the importance of childhood socialization

Affective attachment to the EU: Questioning the importance of childhood socialization

Economic inequality, perceived responsiveness and political trust

Weathering the crisis: Evidence of diffuse support for the EU from a six-wave Dutch panel

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