Differentiation in political trust attitudes occurs when citizens distinguish between different political institutions in terms of their trustworthiness. This article explores patterns of citizens’ (non-)differentiation between the local, national and European Union governance levels with regard to political trust. With unique Dutch data, we find that trust evaluations of each pair of governments (local–national/national–European Union/local–European Union) follows a distinct pattern. This suggests that citizens: (1) form more than one political trust attitude; and (2) use different cognitive mechanisms (like cognitive proximity and subjective rationality) to make sense of the political complexities in multilevel governance systems. Although general patterns found at the population level were largely reproduced at the subgroup level, that is, low and high political sophistication groups produced similar patterns of (non-)differentiation, highly politically sophisticated citizens tended to differentiate more – they are more likely to evaluate each governance level ‘on its own merits’. Our results are especially relevant in an era of declining trust, where governments want to regain citizens’ trust but are very much in the dark about which government level (if any) is the main culprit. Points for practitioners Citizens, particularly those with higher political interest, more exposure to political information and higher education, tend to differentiate in their trust orientations towards different governments. This suggests that citizens, to some extent, judge different governments in the multilevel system ‘on their own merits’. Therefore, politicians and public managers confronted with declining trust in their jurisdiction should seriously consider whether such a negative trend might not reflect citizens’ dissatisfaction with their governments’ lack of responsiveness to the specific demands of its citizens.

Although the debate on roots of political trust is ongoing, many scholars agree on the relevance of such political factors as political/ideological distance between citizens and incumbents, political responsiveness and perceptions of performance. Less clear is to what extent such trust evaluations are generalized or specific for the three main political arenas in the European multilevel governance system (EU, national, local). With new data from the Netherlands, we demonstrate that trust in local, national and EU governments (1) is largely level-specific (i.e. is based on citizens’ perceptions of incumbents at a particular governance level) (2) and—at all three levels—is explained by level-specific political factors. This shows that political trust is a subjectively rational evaluation and that citizens develop meaningful political orientations vis-à-vis governments at different levels. Therefore, trust spillovers may be less relevant for explaining political trust in multilevel governance than assumed in previous research as executive governments at local, national and EU levels are judged “on their own turf”.

AcknowledgementsChapter 1 Introduction 1.1. Political trust, democracy and multilevel governance: introducing the research problem 1.2. Structure of this chapter 1.3. The concept of political trust 1.4. Trust and distrust in democratic governance 1.5. Research gaps: trust in government as generalized vs. specific evaluation 1.6. Shifting the focus to how people trust: political trust in multilevel governance 1.7. Research questions 1.7.1. Trends and patterns of trust differentiation: the need for exploratory descriptive analysis 1.7.2. Determinants of trust differentiation: the need for explanatory analysis 1.8. Research design, data sources and chapters' overview 1.8.1. Overview of chapters Part I Trends and patterns Chapter 2 Trust lost, trust regained? Citizens' trust in EU, national and subnational governments during and after economic crisis 2008-2019 2.1. Introduction 2.1.3. Sub-questions: Trust trends, short-term fluctuations and relationship with macroeconomic conditions 2.3. Trust in decline? 2.3.1. Changes in political trust 2008-2019 -comparative analysis 2.4. Volatility of trust 2.4.1. Volatility of political trust in EU countries -comparative analysis 2.5. Correlates of political trust in times of economic crisis 2.5.1. Trust trends and macro-economic conditions: comparative evidence 2.6. Discussion and conclusions Chapter 3 Patterns of trust differentiation amongst more and less politically sophisticated citizens 3.1. Introduction 3.2. Cognitive mechanisms and patterns of trust differentiation 3.3. Political sophistication and trust differentiation 3.4. Data and measurements 3.4.1. Data 3.4.2. Measurements 3.5. Data analysis 3.5.1. Data analysis strategy 3.5.2. Political trust differentiation in the Netherlands 3.6. Conclusions 3.7. Limitations and future research Part II Determinants Chapter 4 On their own turf? The level-specificity of political trust in multilevel political systems 4.1. Introduction 4.2. Theory 4.2.1. Trust as evaluation 4.2.2. Trust generalization/differentiation 4.3. Specific trust and trust criteria 4.3.1. Representation of one's preferred party in government -hometeam effect 4.3.2. Evaluations of political responsiveness and performance 4.3.3. Hypotheses 4.4. Data and measurements 4.4.1. Data 4.4.2. Measurements 4.5. Data analysis 4.6. Conclusions Chapter 5 The home-team factor and political trust in multilevel systems: evidence from Poland and the Netherlands 5.1. Introduction 5.2. Trust-as-evaluation: the role of the home-team factor 5.3. Heterogeneous home-team effect in multilevel governance 5.4. Home-team effects in localized vs. nationalized local systems

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The rise of China and the "pivot" to Asia announced by the US pose new geopolitical challenges that should be recognized and properly addressed by the European Union. Adapting elements of the neorealist perspective on international relations, this article intends to briefly analyse current and possible role for the EU in the Asian power-balancing game. It also examines the capabilities, interests and deficiencies of the EU as a security actor in the Asia Pacific, and investigates whether the EU's capacities are enough to potentially counterbalance other powers in Asia. Even though there are numerous shortages to the EU's "actorness" and capability to act, it is still the biggest economy in the world, which can be successfully translated into leverage while counterbalancing other powers. Also, developed expertise in non-traditional security matters as well as recent institutional developments provide for the EU's stronger international presence and growing power capacity. However, this potential needs to be well managed. The EU suffers from leadership deficiency and lacks a strong, coherent strategy towards Asia that could match the one of the United States. Such strategy is essential for the EU's security and economic prosperity given growing interdependence between Asian Pacific and European economies as well as increasing role of the Asian powers in global affairs. Especially the rapid growth of China brings several implications not only for the general world order, but also for the EU's position in its hierarchy. Often the power-balancing game in Asia Pacific is depicted as centring around the US-China rivalry for influence. Having in mind that the US is one of the key players in the region, also the EU-US partnership needs a new, Asian dimension which could determine the further role of the transatlantic alliance in a changing security environment. Finally, all comes Data przekazania tekstu: 31.01.2016. Data zaakceptowania tekstu: 04.06.2016.