The European trust crisis and the rise of populism

Yann Algan, Sergei Guriev, Elias Papaioannou and Evgenia Passari

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Abstract: We study the implications of the Great Recession for voting or antiestablishment parties, as well as for general trust and political attitudes, using regional data across Europe. We find a strong relationship between increases in unemployment and voting for non mainstream parties, especially populist ones. Moreover, unemployment increases in tandem with declining trust toward national and European political institutions, though we find only weak or no effects of unemployment on interpersonal trust. The correlation between unemployment and attitudes toward immigrants is muted, especially for their cultural impact. To explore causality, we extract the component of increases in unemployment explained by the precrisis structure of the economy, in particular the share of construction in regional value added, which is strongly related both to the buildup preceding and the bursting of the crisis. Our results imply that crisis-driven economic insecurity is a substantial determinant of populism and political distrust.

Date: 2017
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://sciencespo.hal.science/hal-03393491v1
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Published in Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, 2017, 48 (2), pp.309-400. ⟨10.1353/eca.2017.0015⟩

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Related works:
Journal Article: The European Trust Crisis and the Rise of Populism (2017)
Working Paper: The European Trust Crisis and the Rise of Populism (2017)
Working Paper: The European trust crisis and the rise of populism (2017)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03393491

DOI: 10.1353/eca.2017.0015

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