A stranger thing? Sweden as the upside down of multilevel trust

Gissur Ó. Erlingsson

Journal of Trust Research, 2021, vol. 11, issue 1, 22-41

Abstract: As a rule, citizens appreciate local more than central government. This paper proposes a new research agenda for multilevel trust studies by arguing that it is premature to believe that citizen’s proximity to officials by definition trumps distance. As in country-comparative studies, close attention needs to be paid to institutional quality in analyses of multilevel trust. To put this argument to work, a closer investigation of Sweden is conducted. Tracking three indicators of trust, with time-series stretching over two decades, Sweden turns out to be a curious outlier from the international pattern: Swedes trust their local government less than the state. To make this observation intelligible – while simultaneously aiming to contribute to a more nuanced theoretical understanding of multilevel trust – the mix of three features is identified for bringing this circumstance about: (1) the principal role Swedish municipalities have successively been given in implementing core welfare state assignments; (2) that several of the municipalities’ assignments are susceptible to corruption; and (3) that the increase in municipal responsibilities has neither been accompanied with institutions that guarantee accountability of politicians nor the impartiality of local bureaucracies.

Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/21515581.2021.2014337 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:jtrust:v:11:y:2021:i:1:p:22-41

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/RJTR20

DOI: 10.1080/21515581.2021.2014337

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Trust Research is currently edited by Peter Ping Li

More articles in Journal of Trust Research from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().