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Progressive tax rates are one of the main instruments for redistribution within advanced liberal democracies. In this study, we investigate public support for this policy. In our analysis of a novel question included in the Belgian Electoral Study (2019) we show that left-wing citizens are strongly in favour of this system. Importantly, high levels of political sophistication strengthen the association between ideology and preferences for progressive taxation, while political sophistication weakens the association between income and rejecting progressive tax policies. Support for a flat tax policy follows exactly the opposite pattern. Hence, for a highly sophisticated group apparently there is no conflict between a tax system that might hurt their short-term material interests, and support for a more equal society.

From a representation theory point of view, trust in political institutions is strongly related to the responsiveness of these institutions to citizens' preferences. However, is this also true when the political power of citizens is not equal, which is often the case in more unequal societies? In this article, it is argued that the link between perceptions of responsiveness to individual preferences and political trust differs across equal and unequal societies. We find that in inclusive societies, perceived political responsiveness is strongly related to political trust, whereas this link becomes weaker in more unequal societies. In other words, when economic inequality and exclusion are high, traditional accountability mechanisms between political actors and their citizens are less apparent. We speculate that this weaker link is due to habituation or a lack of political engagement, causing citizens to withdraw from political life altogether. The focus of this article lies on European and OECD-member countries. The study uses data from the International Social Survey Programme and the European Social Survey.

How does generalized political trust affect policy demand in changing welfare states? We simultaneously consider two possible effects. First, trust may buttress normative support, as measured by well-known items on general support for redistribution and ‘government responsibility’ in specific areas. Secondly, political trust may ease concrete reform acceptance in the context of fiscal pressure. This proposition becomes increasingly relevant as welfare states change in ways not directly addressed by traditional survey measures. We develop hypotheses about how different dimensions of normative support and reform acceptance may be unequally affected by political trust. We analyse primary three-wave panel data in a field dominated by cross-sectional analysis. The data offer standard measures of trust and support, and a new multidimensional question battery tapping reform acceptance. We find cross-sectional and longitudinal support for hypotheses predicting that political trust buttresses normative support for horizontally redistributive policies (but as hypothesized not for ‘life-course’ policies). In contrast, there is quite some cross-sectional but little longitudinal support for effects on reform acceptance. Possible exceptions involve some of the more contentious reform types and, in particular, reforms that raise user fees and taxation.

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