Institutional trust and welfare state support: on the role of trust in market institutions

Abstract

: The importance of institutional trust for structuring welfare state support (WSS) has been advanced by several scholars. Yet, the thesis has not received convincing empirical support. We argue that the weak evidence observed by previous research is caused by the failure of not extending the analytical framework beyond the study of public institutions. Using Sweden as a test case, our analytical framework covers trust in public institutions (TPI) and market institutions (TMI). The main findings are: (1) TMI has a robust negative effect on WSS; (2) the expected relationship between TPI and WSS is strengthened controlling for TMI; (3) TMI mediates the relationships between socio-economic variables and WSS. These findings underline the importance of bringing in other institutional configurations that are seen as conceivable alternatives to the state for administrating social welfare, not the least in studies primarily interested in the link between TPI and support for state-organised welfare.

The ISSP 2016 Role of Government Module: Content, Coverage, and History

“…First, previous research places too much emphasis on the state per se and too little on institutional configurations perceived as conceivable alternatives to the state for allocating and administering social security 104 and services. In other words, when analyzing citizens' beliefs regarding institutional capability-the extent to which an institution is trusted to be capable of managing and ultimately providing solutions to specific social problems-it is necessary to move beyond public institutions (Edlund and Lindh 2013). In most countries, the institution outside the family that represents the most consistent counterpart to the state in providing for citizens' welfare is the market.…”

“…In most countries, the institution outside the family that represents the most consistent counterpart to the state in providing for citizens' welfare is the market. To advance our understanding of the role institutional trust plays in citizens' political preferences, we need to incorporate trust in market institutions within the analytical framework (Edlund and Lindh 2013). On this note, it should be underlined that while some of the batteries focusing on advanced welfare statism in the ROG module are perhaps more relevant for the rich countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the concepts of institutional trust in the state and the market are clearly relevant for all countries within the ISSP.…”

“…In the search for empirical indicators following Quality of Government theory, trust in public institutions is indicated by public perceptions of whether tax authorities work efficiently while providing citizens with services in an impartial way (N18; Rothstein 2011; Svallfors 2013). Similarly, having trust in the market and its actors is indicated by public perceptions that major companies comply with law and regulations such as paying their taxes (N19; Uslaner 2010; Edlund and Lindh 2013).…”

Sand or grease? Corruption-institutional trust nexus in post-Soviet countries

“…Interestingly, there is also a recent trend to incorporate a wider range of institutions into the index of institutional trust in developed countries. For instance, Edlund and Lindh (2013) incorporate trust in market organizations (i.e. business enterprises) in their analysis of institutional trust in Sweden.…”

Class Position and Political Opinion in Rich Democracies

“…Mudde & Rovira Kaltwasser 2018;Rooduijn 2019).11 One indicator of this is that people who distrust government also tend to distrust market institutions(Edlund & Lindh 2013;Lindh & McCall 2019), with the movements of Indignados in Spain and Gilets Jaune in France offering real-world examples. In the U.S., other signs include the Occupy Wall Street movement, which cast the top one percenters in a pejorative light and built on rising resentment against the "underserving rich" since the 1990s(McCall 2016), and, as noted above, ample evidence of working and middle class dissatisfaction with economic conditions and economic elites in recent ethnographic studies (Hochschild 2016; Cramer 2016).…”