Political Trust and Socio-Spatial Contexts: Challenging Eurocentric Models through Ethiopia´s Rural-Urban Disparities
(2024) SGEM08 20241Department of Human Geography
- Abstract
- Compared to its urban counterpart, the rural often lacks access to public services. In the global north, this rural-urban divide is said to result in rural areas being perceived as neglected. The concept of geography of discontent investigates this feeling of being left behind, saying it leads to a lower level of trust in political institutions. Similarly, the OECD concludes in their research that a region´s GDP is directly correlated with the level of the so-called political trust. Considering evidential research and survey data for the global south leading to contrary results, the thesis aims to test the concepts and findings from the global north in Ethiopia, exemplified with the urban city Addis Abeba and the rural village Koyo. The... (More)
- Compared to its urban counterpart, the rural often lacks access to public services. In the global north, this rural-urban divide is said to result in rural areas being perceived as neglected. The concept of geography of discontent investigates this feeling of being left behind, saying it leads to a lower level of trust in political institutions. Similarly, the OECD concludes in their research that a region´s GDP is directly correlated with the level of the so-called political trust. Considering evidential research and survey data for the global south leading to contrary results, the thesis aims to test the concepts and findings from the global north in Ethiopia, exemplified with the urban city Addis Abeba and the rural village Koyo. The research is theoretically framed within the discussion of social capital as a broader perspective of how place-based differences influence the formation of political trust. Using a quantitative approach, a survey was conducted with 100 participants. The study employs statistical analysis, including t-tests and correlation coefficients, to assess the relationship between these variables across the two locations. Despite having a lower level of access to public services, Koyo holds an equal level of political trust compared to Addis Abeba. While the correlation in Koyo is strongly positive and in Addis Abeba it is non-significant, the data does not just suggest a differences in relationship between the two places, but also that the rural-urban dynamics within this research differs compared to the global north. The outcomes highlight and exemplify the complexities of political trust and how incentives are underlying place-based differences and therefore adds to the debate around the universality of theories and concepts developed in the global north. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9172679
- author
- Trost, Johannes LU
- supervisor
-
- Andrea Nardi LU
- organization
- course
- SGEM08 20241
- year
- 2024
- type
- H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
- subject
- keywords
- rural-urban divide, political trust, access to public services, Ethiopia, social capital, OECD, geography of discontent
- language
- English
- id
- 9172679
- date added to LUP
- 2024-08-28 09:38:56
- date last changed
- 2024-08-28 09:38:56
@misc{9172679, abstract = {{Compared to its urban counterpart, the rural often lacks access to public services. In the global north, this rural-urban divide is said to result in rural areas being perceived as neglected. The concept of geography of discontent investigates this feeling of being left behind, saying it leads to a lower level of trust in political institutions. Similarly, the OECD concludes in their research that a region´s GDP is directly correlated with the level of the so-called political trust. Considering evidential research and survey data for the global south leading to contrary results, the thesis aims to test the concepts and findings from the global north in Ethiopia, exemplified with the urban city Addis Abeba and the rural village Koyo. The research is theoretically framed within the discussion of social capital as a broader perspective of how place-based differences influence the formation of political trust. Using a quantitative approach, a survey was conducted with 100 participants. The study employs statistical analysis, including t-tests and correlation coefficients, to assess the relationship between these variables across the two locations. Despite having a lower level of access to public services, Koyo holds an equal level of political trust compared to Addis Abeba. While the correlation in Koyo is strongly positive and in Addis Abeba it is non-significant, the data does not just suggest a differences in relationship between the two places, but also that the rural-urban dynamics within this research differs compared to the global north. The outcomes highlight and exemplify the complexities of political trust and how incentives are underlying place-based differences and therefore adds to the debate around the universality of theories and concepts developed in the global north.}}, author = {{Trost, Johannes}}, language = {{eng}}, note = {{Student Paper}}, title = {{Political Trust and Socio-Spatial Contexts: Challenging Eurocentric Models through Ethiopia´s Rural-Urban Disparities}}, year = {{2024}}, }