Dynamics of Aggregate Political Trust in the European Union; The role of national institutions and evaluations of economic benefits
(2018) NEKN01 20181Department of Economics
- Abstract
- Political trust in the EU has declined substantially in recent year and the growing divide between the Eurozone and the other member countries are at the heart of the scholarly debate. As a result, there is a growing body of literature on the determinants of political trust and public opinions in the EU. Existing research propose and test several explanations for the foundations of political trust in the EU and find that various economic indicators, particularly trust in national institutions, are key for trust in the EU. Most of these studies focus predominantly on the direct effect of these determinants and at the individual micro-level, but the analysis of aggregate level political trust and indirect effect of key predictors is less... (More)
- Political trust in the EU has declined substantially in recent year and the growing divide between the Eurozone and the other member countries are at the heart of the scholarly debate. As a result, there is a growing body of literature on the determinants of political trust and public opinions in the EU. Existing research propose and test several explanations for the foundations of political trust in the EU and find that various economic indicators, particularly trust in national institutions, are key for trust in the EU. Most of these studies focus predominantly on the direct effect of these determinants and at the individual micro-level, but the analysis of aggregate level political trust and indirect effect of key predictors is less explored. The present study argues that trust should not only be seen as an individual character but also as a characteristic of societies. This thesis investigates whether trust in national institutions influences political trust in the EU at the aggregate level, focusing on the relationship between trust in national and EU institutions on the on hand, and the interrelations with economic benefits and differences across groups on the other hand. This study relies on aggregated Eurobarometer survey data and Eurostat data from 28 countries, between 2004 and 2016 to test the dynamics of political trust at the aggregate level. The results show that the micro-level relationship between trust at different institutional levels is visible also at the aggregate level. The study furthermore shows that aggregate trust in national institutions is conditioned on evaluations of economic benefits and that the effect of different aggregated predictors is not equivalent in the Eurozone and the countries outside the euro. Taken together, these findings suggest that the aggregate level relationship and the differences and interactions between key predictors ought to be considered to get a richer picture of how trust is determined. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/8945477
- author
- Lokrantz, Elin LU
- supervisor
-
- Andreas Bergh LU
- Therese Nilsson LU
- organization
- course
- NEKN01 20181
- year
- 2018
- type
- H1 - Master's Degree (One Year)
- subject
- keywords
- trust, institutions, EU, aggregate level, economic indicators
- language
- English
- id
- 8945477
- date added to LUP
- 2018-07-03 14:21:07
- date last changed
- 2018-07-03 14:21:07
@misc{8945477,
abstract = {{Political trust in the EU has declined substantially in recent year and the growing divide between the Eurozone and the other member countries are at the heart of the scholarly debate. As a result, there is a growing body of literature on the determinants of political trust and public opinions in the EU. Existing research propose and test several explanations for the foundations of political trust in the EU and find that various economic indicators, particularly trust in national institutions, are key for trust in the EU. Most of these studies focus predominantly on the direct effect of these determinants and at the individual micro-level, but the analysis of aggregate level political trust and indirect effect of key predictors is less explored. The present study argues that trust should not only be seen as an individual character but also as a characteristic of societies. This thesis investigates whether trust in national institutions influences political trust in the EU at the aggregate level, focusing on the relationship between trust in national and EU institutions on the on hand, and the interrelations with economic benefits and differences across groups on the other hand. This study relies on aggregated Eurobarometer survey data and Eurostat data from 28 countries, between 2004 and 2016 to test the dynamics of political trust at the aggregate level. The results show that the micro-level relationship between trust at different institutional levels is visible also at the aggregate level. The study furthermore shows that aggregate trust in national institutions is conditioned on evaluations of economic benefits and that the effect of different aggregated predictors is not equivalent in the Eurozone and the countries outside the euro. Taken together, these findings suggest that the aggregate level relationship and the differences and interactions between key predictors ought to be considered to get a richer picture of how trust is determined.}},
author = {{Lokrantz, Elin}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{Dynamics of Aggregate Political Trust in the European Union; The role of national institutions and evaluations of economic benefits}},
year = {{2018}},
}