Regional differences in political trust: Comparing the Vysocina and Usti Regions

Abstract

This article deals with the factors influencing the degree of trust in political institutions at three levels of government in the Czech Republic (national, regional and local) in two dissimilar regions in the time of economic crisis in 2009, the year when citizens of the Czech Republic experienced the negative impacts of growing unemployment and a substantial decline in real GDP. Two competitive theories - the cultural and the performance explanation - were used as a theoretical framework. The results show that there are significant differences among particular levels of government as well as regions. The influence of both institutional performance, including factors related to economic crisis, and cultural background were found. The influence of contextual factors was also confirmed.

Fair treatment, fair play? The relationship between fair treatment perceptions, political trust and compliant and cooperative attitudes cross‐nationally

“…Second, this study also adds to the emerging empirical evidence on how contextual factors influence the criteria citizens use to develop institutional trust (e.g., Hakhverdian & Mayne ; Čermák et al. ). Neundorf (), for instance, showed that having lived under socialist rule impacts the drivers of institutional trust.…”

Mayors and Their Priorities

“…Obce jsou základními územními samosprávnými celky a obecní samospráva a starostové a starostky 1 jako její představitelé se dlouhodobě těší nejvyšší důvěře obyvatel [CVVM 2017;Čermák, Stachová 2010;Čermák, Mikešová, Stachová 2016]. Přístupy k vedení obcí v Česku se však významně liší a jsou ovlivněny mnoha faktory, což se následně promítá i do fungování obcí.…”

How people trust their governments : Trends, patterns and determinants of trust differentiation in multilevel polities

“…Then, there are cross-sectional studies which focus specifically on trust in government (i.e., in the political executive body -the cabinet) and investigate its various determinants (Čermák et al, 2016;Christensen & Laegreid, 2005;Christensen et al, 2020;Holmberg et al, 2017;Miller, 2004;Muñoz, 2017;Ken Newton, 2006;Nye et al, 1997;Torcal, 2014;van de Walle & Bouckaert, 2003;Wilkes, 2015). They demonstrate that trust in government is closely related to the evaluations of its performance, perceptions of responsiveness, etc.…”

“…This does not change the overall interpretation of the results, which focuses on relative correlations strengths, i.e., investigating whether they vary between indicators and levels of governance (as their variation would indicate differentiation in political trust across levels of governance against the backdrop of changing socio-political and economic conditions). 35 National government is responsible for basic entitlements like unemployment benefits, old-age pensions and incapacity allowances; previous studies have shown that unemployment has implications for trust in national government (Čermák et al, 2016;Dolan et al, 2009;Halvorsen, 2016;Muro & Vidal, 2017;van Erkel & van der Meer, 2016). Subnational governments, on the other hand, need to deal with social consequences of unemployment, such as eroding local capital, demand for social housing or rising crime (Sellers & Lildström, 2007).…”