Direct Democracy and Institutional Trust: Relationships and Differences Across Personality Traits

Abstract

Direct democracy plays a prominent role in the explanation of institutional trust. To date, however, empirical findings on the effects of direct democracy remain inconclusive. In this article, we argue that this inconclusiveness can be partly ascribed to the diverse effects direct democracy has on individuals. In other words, direct democracy influences institutional trust, but how and to what degree depends on individuals’ personality traits. Running hierarchical analyses of unique survey data from a random sample of eligible Swiss voters, we document three findings: First, we show that the number of ballot measures is not directly associated with institutional trust. Second, we demonstrate that the Big Five personality traits affect the propensity to trust. Third, some of these traits also alter the relationship between direct democracy and institutional trust, suggesting that certain personality types are more likely to be sensitive to popular votes than others and that not everyone is equally likely to respond to political stimuli, even in highly democratic environments.

Personality Traits and Political Ideology: A First Global Assessment

“…Using this framework, Gerber et al () argue theoretically (and show empirically) that relationships between the “Big Five” and policy attitudes are conditional on the ethnic background of respondents. And recently, more and more studies explicitly analyze how personality interacts with context and other factors (Ackermann & Ackermann, ; Freitag & Ackermann, ).…”

“…In an authoritative system, sociality might be prevalent as well, but there is no reason to associate it with self‐determination and liberalism because this is precisely what authorities want to inhibit. Thus, extroverts develop a coping strategy adapted to the context in order to deal with disagreement and conflict, but without extending this inclination to political attitudes (Freitag & Ackermann, , p. 6).…”

“… Notable exceptions that rely either on random sampling or cross‐national designs include Freitag and Ackermann (), Mondak, Canache, Seligson, and Hibbing (), Schoen and Schumann (), Van Hiel, Kossowska, and Mervielde (), and Vecchione et al ().…”

“Don't Get Arrested!” Trust, Miscommunication, and Repression at the 2008 Anti‐G8 Mobilization in Japan

“…The case of the anti‐G8 mobilization in Japan shows that under state repression, when movement actors at transnational mobilizations resort to interpersonal trust, it can limit autonomous and decentralized action—thereby undermining horizontal politics—and make the movement more vulnerable to repression. Trust is widely thought to be an essential element for mitigating risk in movement organizing and is considered “a vital resource for the functioning of democratic political systems” (Freitag and Ackerman , 1). However, the type of trust that is demanded by movement actors of one another makes all the difference.…”

Exploring Institutional Trust and Organizational Performance through the Case of the City of Cape Town

“…Several scholars argue that governments perform better when trusted by its citizens (Putnam, 1993;Sztompka, 1999;Mishler & Rose, 2001;Freitag & Ackermann, 2015). However, evidence also shows that one of the greatest challenges facing governments, particularly in emerging democracies, is the building and nurturing of citizens' trust.…”