Living under the ‘right’ government: does political ideology matter to trust in political institutions?

Justina A. V. Fischer

No 212, CEIS Research Paper from Tor Vergata University, CEIS

Abstract: This paper asks whether trust in political institutions depends on individual’s political leaning and the political ideology of the national government. We employ information on 140'000 individuals in 30 democratic OECD countries from the World Values Survey, 1981 – 2007, and estimate so-called micro-based pseudo-panel two-way fixed effects models. Distinguishing between extreme and moderate versions of leftist and rightist political leaning, our estimates reveal that political trust increases non-linearly in the degree of individual’s conservatism. We also find that political leaning is not instrumental to improving one's own socio-economic situation, thus rather constituting an expressive behavior. If government ideology matches individual’s political preferences, trust in political institutions is increased. In contrast, the ‘apolitical’ appears to distrust the political system as such. We also find evidence for a symmetric, but incomplete convergence of party ideologies to the median voter position. Implications for vote abstention are discussed.

Keywords: political trust; government ideology; political leaning; World Values Survey (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 H11 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 53 pages
Date: 2011-10-14, Revised 2011-10-14
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-pol and nep-soc
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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