Social Capital and Political Trust in Finland: An Individual‐level Assessment

Abstract

Political trust has in previous studies mainly been associated, either positively or negatively with a set of political variables, such as subjective knowledge of and interest in political issues, political efficacy, national pride, post‐materialist values and corruption permissiveness. More recently, it has been debated whether or not indicators of social capital also have an impact on political trust. It has been argued that social capital helps to sustain civic virtues and that lack of it will create democratic problems like political dissatisfaction and declining political participation. While trends in social capital seem stable and high at the aggregate level in Finland, the level of political trust has varied to a much larger degree. In this article, indicators of social capital, political variables and social background variables are set against the Finns’ trust in politicians and the parliament as well as their satisfaction with democracy. The analysis shows that social capital, as defined by a set of variables comprised of interpersonal trust and voluntary organisational activism, does not, en bloc, prove to be a powerful predictor of political trust. However, when the social capital items are examined as single factors, interpersonal trust seems to have strong impact on all levels of political trust, while the influence of voluntary organisational activity is less evident.

Political Legitimacy in Ireland During Economic Crisis: Insights from the European Social Survey

“…Most previous research into political trust and legitimacy has looked at determinants of legitimacy at one point in time (Domański, 2005;Anderson & Singer, 2008;Bäck & Kestilä, 2008;Listhaug & Ringdal, 2008;Allum et al, 2010;Berg & Hjerm, 2010;Schäfer, 2010;Morselli et al, 2012). Some researchers have analysed individual indicators related to satisfaction and trust such as satisfaction with democracy or trust in politicians to measure legitimacy (Bäck & Kestilä, 2008;Listhaug & Ringdal, 2008;Schäfer, 2010).…”

“…While distrust may be an important catalyst for change, an extended period of distrust could have negative consequences (Bäck & Kestilä, 2008). There have been concerns about the extent of the decline in trust in political authorities since the 1960s (Dalton, 2004), particularly in three areas -government, parliament, and political parties (Manning & Wetzel, 2010;Roth et al, 2011).…”

“…It involves the public's assessment of the intentions, policy positions, competencies, and performance or outcomes of the government (Bäck & Kestilä, 2008;Rothstein, 2009;Roth et al, 2011). For Beetham (2001), political power is morally justified when it is grounded in shared societal beliefs not only about the rightful source of authority and appropriate standards of governing, but also the ends of government.…”

“…3 Feelings of interpersonal or social trust, i.e. trust in generalised others, are also important in the literature on political legitimacy and much empirical study has been devoted to exploring the connections between political trust and social trust (Sztompka, 1999;Putnam, 2000;Domański, 2005;Bäck & Kestilä, 2008;Allum et al, 2010Allum et al, , 2011Zmerli & Newton, 2011).…”

Immigrants in Irish Politics: African and East European Candidates in the 2009 Local Government Elections

“…Bäck and Kestilä (2008), for example, examine empirically the relationship between social capital and political trust in Finland. The 'individual-level' data used derive from the Finnish data in the European Social Survey (first round, 2002/2003), where the focus is on informal sociality rather than formal membership of voluntary associations.…”