The impact of interpersonal trust and economic performance on political support: Evidences from 38 European countries

It is well known that interpersonal trust is a relevant predictor of Democratic support and democracy. The lack of trust leads to less prosperous and ungovernable societies. According to several scholars (Offe 1995, Uslaner 1999, Warren 1995), the main mechanism through which trust leads to a functioning democracy is by extending the interpersonal trusting ties (horizontal trust) from familiar circles to those individuals we don´t necessarily know, starting from other individuals up to impersonal entities such as institutions. Democratic institutions will then act as an umbrella to protect the interpersonal trust relations generating exchange and certainty in social relations (Fukuyama 1995). If these conditions of persistence of trusting ties and democracy do not exist, support for the democratic process tends to rely in short term evaluations of the economy. It is expected that high trust will be found in more stable democracies whereas more recently established democratic regimes will present low levels of trust. There is empirical evidence that in longer established democracies, the impact of trust is higher than in more recent democracies. This paper analyzes the impact of interpersonal trust on support for the democratic performance, and explores the effect of trust on political support at the individual level, controlling for other predictors for support for democracy, and also controlling for other variables at the aggregate level, such as persistence of democracy, post-communist legacy etc. In order to test the hypotheses, multilevel analysis will be conducted and  data from the European Value Study 2008 will be used.