Social and Political Trust

Ken Newton (1) , Dietlind Stolle , Sonja Zmerli (2)

1 University of Southampton
2 IEPG - Sciences Po Grenoble - Institut d'études politiques de Grenoble

During recent years, empirical trust research has significantly advanced our understanding about the interdependencies of social and political trust. This progress can mostly be attributed to major improvements of measurement instruments in survey research. Research on the causes of both forms of trust have examined the top-down approach of trust building, which places importance on fair and impartial political institutions, such as the police and judiciary, as well as societal accounts of trust building that relate to the role of social networks and parents as well as perceptions of inequality. While there is a modest relationship between social forms of trust and political forms of trust, research has not entirely disentangled the flow of causality between the two. Recent insights into contextual and individual-level covariates of social and political trust may hold answers regarding future developments and political and societal consequences.

Mots clés: political trust; social trust; sources of trust; political institutions; voluntary associations

Domaines: Science politique

Ken Newton, Dietlind Stolle, Sonja Zmerli. Social and Political Trust. Oxford University Press. The Oxford Handbook of Social and Political Trust, pp.37-56, 2018, 9780190274801. ⟨10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190274801.013.20⟩. ⟨hal-01796358⟩