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Trust is widely considered the glue that binds society together, spanning scales from the individual to institutional to continental. Trust has many forms, including social and political, and can be universal as well as particular. The ESS data has amassed public opinion data on numerous measures of trust that allow examination of its composition, level, and distribution, along with its sources and consequences. Its broad temporal range combined with pan-European focus enables comparative testing of hypotheses about the reach of trust. For instance, is trust in strangers a universal moral value (Uslaner 2002, 2018), how likely are forms of trust to spill over to other domains given national, cultural, or temporal contexts, and how does particularized trust relate with and potentially translate to other types of trust, including more generalized forms (Reeskens and Hooghe 2008; Newton, Stolle, and Zmerli 2018).
We invite papers on topics encompassing social and political trust that seek to describe its many realizations across the landscape as well as to compare them using innovative methods. We welcome contributions, for example, including trust in other individuals, organizations, institutions, and the social order over time and across places. Although multi-country studies are especially encouraged, single country studies with a comparative lens will also be considered. Examples include, for instance, normative and instrumental aspects of political trust such as institutional legitimacy, government performance (Levi and Stoker 2000), evaluations of how political institutions and actors fulfill their obligations to the social and political order, trust in others, trustworthiness of societies and social systems (Putnam 2000), and the relationship between diversity and social trust (Ziller 2015).
Presentations
A Dark Side to Social Trust? Explaining the Relationship between Social Trust and Accepting Conspiracy Beliefs
Lynn de Munnik, Tim Reeskens
Tilburg University, Netherlands, The
An increasing amount of citizens are accepting conspiracy theories, in the sense that they believe that situations or events are secretly and with negative intent manipulated by (powerful) groups of actors. While some studies have untangled that accepting conspiracy beliefs can have adverse psychological consequences, the aim of this study is to understand what drives the acceptance of conspiracy beliefs by highlighting the complex role of social trust. Social trust, defined as the “belief that others will not, at worst, knowingly or willingly do you harm and will, at best, act in your interests” is expected to be linked to accepting conspiracy theories as a general audience might not necessarily be aware of the intentions the sender of conspiracy beliefs has, thereby embracing the information as it might serve one’s interests. From the understanding that generalized trust might also have a ‘dark side’ with a naïve acceptance of conspiracy beliefs, we therefore propose that the extent to which generalized trust is related to the acceptance of conspiracy beliefs is contingent upon cognitive sophistication, proxied by educational levels. To empirically verify these hypotheses, we will analyze data from the most recent European Social Survey Round 10 Data (2020). This cross-national survey aims to monitor changing attitudes and values within Europe and contains suitable variables regarding the acceptance of conspiracy beliefs, social trust, and education. The results of our analysis indicate that while social trust lowers the acceptance of conspiracy beliefs, the effect is rather weak for lower-educated respondents.
Government-Party Evaluations and The Cost of Governing for Far-Right Parties
Harley Roe
Florida State University, United States of America
Political parties that serve in the executive typically experience a “cost of governing” — support attrition following a party’s service as a member of a governing coalition. Not all parties experience these costs equally, with the European far-right experiencing higher governing costs than other parties. Theories that attempt to explain this discrepancy assume that far-right voters more harshly evaluate their government and party when it serves in the executive than other party supporters. At the same time, we should expect that voters whose preferred party enters government are happier with the way democracy functions and feel closer to their party. Using data from nine waves of the European Social Survey (ESS), I show that on average, far-right party supporters are dissatisfied with government while in opposition, but become more satisfied and more attached to their party than most other parties once they enter the executive. The far-right’s high governing costs are inversely related to evaluations of the government and party attachment.
Tracing the Origin of the “Winner–Loser Gap” – A Temporal Analysis of how Election Outcomes Impact Winners’ and Losers’ Satisfaction with Democracy
Einar Bäckström
Stockholm University, Sweden
Citizens who vote for a losing party tend to feel less satisfied with democracy and its procedures than those who vote for a winner. Despite the extensive documentation of this phenomenon, commonly referred to as the “winner–loser gap,” the temporal dynamics of its initial emergence lack comprehensive scrutiny. This research addresses the topic by introducing and testing a new theoretical framework, distinguishing between short- and long-term effects. Short-term effects imply that voters partly adjust their attitudes toward the political system already upon learning the election outcome, due to distinct emotions and altered perceived personal benefits. Meanwhile, long-term effects play out gradually in the post-election period, due to factors such as social reinforcement, motivated reasoning, and partisan news consumption, meaning that it takes some time for a new “winner–loser gap” to fully develop. The empirical analysis relies on 10 samples from the European Social Survey that happened to be gathered during periods when narrow election outcomes emerged. By mapping the dates that each response was collected, I can track how attitudinal responses unfolded in relation to the election outcomes. The study reveals that, at least in the European context, it is the long-term mechanisms that predominantly explain the emergence of the "winner–loser gap." Notably, in elections where a government transition occurred, a new gap did not materialize until a few weeks after the outcome was solidified. These findings hold important implications for understanding and addressing the risk of electoral instability during election periods.
