Globalization and Political Trust

Justina A. V. Fischer

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: This paper postulates that a country’s integration into the world economy may lower citizens’ political trust. I argue that economic globalization constrains government’s choice set of feasible policies, impeding responsiveness to the median voter. Matching individual-level survey data from 1981 to 2007, repeated cross-sections of altogether 260’000 persons from 80 countries, with a measure of a country’s degree of economic globalization for the same time period, I find that there is a trust-lowering impact of globalization; its magnitude, however, depends on whether or not the individual is informed about politics and the economy. Trustlowering effects of globalization are larger for those who have no interest in politics, are unwilling to indicate their political leaning, or who have low educational levels. Two-stage least squares regressions and a set of country and time fixed effects support a causal interpretation. Obviously, viewing the domestic government as accountable for its policies plays a decisive role for the relation between economic globalization and political trust. Robustness against country’s degree of economic development, past globalization and different time periods is tested.

Keywords: Political trust; social capital; globalization; international trade; openness; FDI; World Values Survey (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D02 F15 H41 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012-02-16
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Globalization and Political Trust (2012)
Working Paper: Globalization and political trust (2012)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:36692

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