Social Trust and Political Participation

Social trust and Political Participation A

multilevel analysis of 25 European democracies

Maria Bck1 and Henrik S. Christensen2

1st DRAFT. PLEASE DO NOT QUOTE.

1 Dpt. of political science, bo Akademi University, Fnriksgatan 3A, FIN-20500 bo. E-mail: [email protected] 2 Dpt. of political science, bo Akademi University, Fnriksgatan 3A, FIN-20500 bo. E-mail: [email protected]

Abstract. The link between social trust and political participation has often been found to be

either weak or non-existent. However, these studies have neglected the interaction between

different levels of analysis and have instead examined them at either the aggregated level or

the individual level. These studies hereby overlook that there are good reasons to assume

that the effect of social trust on individual behaviour is context dependent. With the help of

multilevel logistic regressions, we examine how four contextual elements affect the impact

of social trust on three forms of political participation: voting, institutionalised, and non-

institutionalised participation. The data for the study comes from the fourth round of the

ESS from 2008 and include a total of 25 European democracies and 47489 respondents at the

individual level. The results suggest that the context does indeed play a significant role in

shaping the effect of social trust on political participation.

1

INTRODUCTION

To see social capital is an important predictor for political participation has virtually become

a truism within the study of political participation. Following the seminal work of Robert

Putnam (1993, 2000), several studies have examined the link with political participation.

Social capital is traditionally defined as having two central components: social networks,

and interpersonal trust (Putnam, 2000: 19). When it comes to political participation, most

studies find that the network component is the central element for explaining how active

citizens are (Krishna 2002; Teorell 2003; Howard and Gilbert, 2008; Maloney and van Deth,

2010; Bck, 2011). Putnam also grants primacy to voluntary associations that instil habits of

cooperation and public-spiritedness in their members and function as schools of democracy

(Putnam 2000: 338-339). All social networks do, however, not produce social trust or make

democracy work. There are organizations that do the exact opposite, creating unsocial

capital instead. Rothstein argues that it is logically contradicting if social capital creates

social traps instead of dissolving them (Rothstein 2003: 7094). Previous research has

indicated that social trust may be the very fabric of social life. While associations may

vitalise social life, social trust is the moral base, a resource that makes it possible to co-

operate even if we are not certain how others are going to act (Uslaner, 1999: 122; Ilmonen,

2000: 28). Nevertheless, when it comes to generalized social trust and the link to political

participation, most studies find, only a weak or even non-significant relationship both at the

individual (Rothstein 2003; Bck 2011) and at the aggregated level (Uslaner and Brown,

2005).

However, most of these studies have only paid limited attention to how the context can

mediate the effect of social trust on political participation. This is unfortunate since it has

been noted that the impact may well be dependent on the context, thus constituting a

missing link that can help explain some of the ambiguity in past research reports. Social

capital can be both an individual asset as well as a public good, and individuals whose

personal social capital is low may take advantage of the potentially high contextual social

capital (Putnam 2000: 20). In a similar vein, generalized social trust can, at the societal level,

be seen as an indicator of social cohesion, allowing the citizens to come together and join

forces in social and political networks. Social trust may facilitate life in diverse societies,

promoting both tolerance and acceptance (Stolle, 2002; Uslaner, 2002). There are therefore

good reasons to believe that generalized social trust matters more under certain

circumstances that in others.

For this reason, this study sets out to examine how the context influences the effect of social

trust on the propensity to become active in three forms of political participation: voting,

institutionalised participation, and non-institutionalised participation. We examine the

impact of four central contextual elements at the country level: state legitimacy and

contextual social trust are both central cultural elements, whereas the effective electoral

2

threshold and fiscal decentralisation captures the extent of power sharing embedded in the

institutional structure of the state. Specifically, we examine the following research questions:

1. The direct effect of social trust on political participation (individual-level).

2. Contextual effects (an examination of the direct contextual effect on participation).

3. Interaction effects (an examination of whether the context mediates the effect of

social trust on participation).

The data for examining these research questions come from the fourth round of the

European Social Survey from 2008 (ESS, 2008) and in all we include 25 democratic countries

and a total of 47489 respondents. The results suggest that there are indeed significant

contextual effects that moderate the impact of social trust on political participation.

THEORETICAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE LINK BETWEEN SOCIAL TRUST AND

POLITICAL PARTICIPATION

Following the work of Putnam (1993, 2000), the link between social capital and political

engagement has been debated within political science. Most research focuses on the link

between being active in voluntary associations and being politically active (Krishna 2002;

Teorell 2003; Howard and Gilbert, 2008; Maloney and van Deth, 2010; Bck, 2011). The link

between social trust and political participation has also been the topic of interest, but there is

a certain ambivalence in the findings. While some studies find a positive relationship

between social trust and political participation (Fennema & Tillie, 2001; Kaase, 1999;

Putnam, 1993; 2000) others find the connection to be either weak, non-existent or even

negative (Bck, 2011; van Deth, 2001; Milner, 2000; Muhlberger, 2003; Pattie et al., 2003).

Hence, there is need for a more detailed study on how and why social trust may affect

political participation.

With social trust we mean generalized interpersonal trust as opposed to particularized

interpersonal trust. While the former entails the general feeling that most people can be

trusted, the latter is confined to people we already know, for example people in our own

social or demographic group. While particularized trust does not benefit the society as a

whole, but may rather harm it by creating a sense of us and them among the citizens,

generalized trust enhances the feeling of a common moral foundation, identity and norms. It

may also reduce the risk of free riding (Oskarsson, 2003; Uslaner, 2002).

When studying the link between social trust and political participation, it is necessary to

note that political participation has evolved to become a heterogeneous phenomenon that

can be conceptualized as involving everything from voting and party membership to

political consumerism and taking part in demonstrations (Norris, 2002; van Deth et al., 2007;

Christensen, 2011).Acknowledging that political participation is a multifaceted concept, we

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use the definition offered by Brady (1999: 737): action by ordinary citizens directed towards

influencing some political outcomes. To capture the richness of political participation, we here

focus on three central forms of political participation in the representative democracy:

voting, institutionalized participation in close vicinity to the political system, and non-

institutionalised participation outside the formal political system (Kaase, 1999; Marien et al.,

2010).

A large battery of variables has been proposed to account for the different forms of

participation (Barnes, Kaase, et al, 1979; Norris, 2002; Dalton, 2006; van Deth et al., 2007;

Christensen, 2011). For social trust, the intuitive expectation is that it has a positive effect on

all forms of political participation. The more trusting an individual is, the more political

active she is. The literature on the topic gives some suggestions on how the mechanism

between social trust and political participation works. According to Putnam (1993: 99120) a

good society is made up of an interested and trustful citizenry and the emphasis is on civic

engagement, political equality, solidarity and tolerance. These principles are reflected in

what is presumed to be a good citizenship and what norms are perceived to characterize

such a citizenship. Community oriented citizens do not only have the right to participate in

common matters, but they are also expected to be active, both for their own sake and the

sake of the community. Among others, Oskarsson argues that interpersonal trust moderates

the free passenger-problem. What he means by this is that individuals who act rationally

tend to free ride and take advantage of the cooperation of others without participating

themselves. The idea is that we pitch in, for example by recycling, paying our taxes etc. as

long as we trust that other people do the same. Interpersonal trust is an important

prerequisite for this to happen (Oskarsson, 2003: 70; Rothstein, 2003). This leads us to

propose the following hypotheses on the link between social trust and the three forms of

political participation:

Hypothesis1a (H1a): Social trust has a positive effect on the propensity to vote.

Hypothesis1b (H1b): Social trust has a positive effect on the propensity to be active in

institutionalised participation.

Hypothesis1c (H1c): Social trust has a positive effect on the propensity to be active in non-


Although the theoretical arguments are convincing, the empirical evidence is as noted far

from conclusive. There may be several reasons for this. Social trust may work as a double-

edged sword (Pattie et al., 2003: 458). Trusting people may become politically active because

they expect that they will be successful in whatever the purpose of the activity is, but they

can also remain inactive because they believe that other people can be trusted to get the job

done. Untrusting individuals may also become politically active to ensure that the

unreliable government officials will be held accountable. Finally people can remain

disengaged if they feel that the officials cannot be controlled by the public and social trust

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may therefore, according to the authors, work in an opposite or self-cancelling way when it

comes to political engagement for certain people.

This shows that uncertainties still linger when it comes to the link between trust and

participation. A pertinent question concerns how the link between social trust and

participation is affected by the context in which the political actions occur. Previous research

indicates that social trust is dependent on the context in which it is embedded (Stolle, 2002).

We therefore examine the role of contextual factors. We focus on four central aspects of the

context.

The first two aspects concern cultural dimensions of the environment. In their original work

on political culture, Almond and Verba (1963: 13) state that [W]hen we speak of the

political culture of society, we refer to the political system as internalized in the cognitions,

feelings, and evaluations or its population (Almond and Verba 1963: 13). Some of the key

aspects of political culture are support in government, trust in the political system and

political efficacy. These aspects are of central meaning for both social trust (Rothstein 2003,

2011; Bck 2011) and political participation (e.g. Booth and Seligson, 2009). Two cultural

aspects are of particular relevance for the present purposes. The first aspect concerns the

legitimacy of the state. Gilley (2006: 499) asserts that political legitimacy is a major

determinant of both the structure and operation of states and that it profoundly affects the

states behaviour toward the citizens and others. According to Gilley, legitimacy is an

endorsement of the state by citizens at a moral and normative level. Following David

Beethams (1991) theory of the legitimation of power, he makes a distinction between three

constitutive sub-types of legitimacy that together define the idea of rightfulness as it is

believed by citizens: views of legality, views of justification and acts of consent (Gilley, 2006:

502). While the latter in Gilleys measurement approach is solely focused on behaviour, we

will concentrate on the attitudinal indicators of the two former attributes.

The second cultural aspect concerns the community level of social trust. The positive link

between social trust and participation would be expected to apply at the aggregate level as

well, that is to say, a trusting community displays higher levels of political activity than

communities with scarce levels of social trust. Parallels can be drawn to Putnams study of

the Italian regions and the assumption that democracy will work better in an environment of

high social capital: Stocks of social capital, such as trust, norms and networks, tend to be

self-reinforcing and cumulative. Virtuous circles result in social equilibrium with high levels

of cooperation, trust, reciprocity, civic engagement and well-being, as well as honesty and

law-abidingness (Putnam 1993: 111, 177). There are many, albeit disputed (see e.g. Jackman

and Miller 1998), attempts to treat social capital as culture. Inglehart (1997: 188) defines

social capital as a culture of trust and tolerance and Almond and Verba (1963) identify

interpersonal trust as an important trait conducive to democracy when they find that nations

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with longer tradition of stable democracy demonstrate higher levels of trust and that trust

also correlates with political activism. According to Putnam (1993: 99120) a good society is

made up of an interested and trustful citizenry and the emphasis is on civic engagement,

political equality, solidarity and tolerance.

In addition to the two cultural factors, we also examine the effects of two institutional

factors. The context of political institutions has been argued to either directly or indirectly

influence both patterns of political engagement (Powell, 2000; Kittilson and Schwindt-Bayer,

2010; Christensen, 2011; Marien and Christensen, 2012) and has also been argued to be affect

levels of social trust (Freitag and Bhlmann, 2009). Following Lijphart (1999), a basic

distinction is frequently drawn between power sharing and power concentrating democratic

systems (Kittilson and Schwindt-Bayer, 2010: 991). The power sharing democracies value

inclusion and the representativeness of the political majorities and therefore aim to generate

governments that are representative of a wide array of interests. Power concentrating

democracies prioritise accountability and the rule of the majority and therefore aim to

produce efficient majority governments with clear responsibility for the decision-making.

The extent of powers sharing or institutional openness plays a central role in determining

how easy it is for citizens to influence the political decision-making between elections

(Christensen, 2011: 5961).

We focus on two central institutional aspects. The effective electoral threshold captures how

easy it is for political parties to win representation in parliament (Powell, 2000). A low

effective electoral threshold increases the number of effective parties competing in elections

and thereby extends the extent of power sharing within the system. Fiscal decentralisation is a

measure for the extent of vertical decentralisation of the political system and denotes the

proportion of local and regional spending in relation to the total spending (Morales, 2009:

170). Increased decentralisation adds to the extent of power sharing by dividing decision-

making powers between several layers of government. Both of these have been used in

previous research examining the institutional effect on political behaviour (Powell, 2000;

Kittilson and Schwindt-Bayer, 2010; Christensen, 2011; Marien and Christensen, 2012).

These four contextual factors may affect political participation directly. Previous literature

has found that cultural factors affect the likelihood of being active in political activities

(Almond and Verba, 1963; Inglehart, 1997; Denk, 2009). The level of political participation is

generally higher in countries with high contextual social capital (Bck, 2011). In a similar

vein, studies have found that institutional factors affect participation in political

organisations (Morales, 2009) and protest (Dalton et al., 2010), although other studies finds

the direct effect of the institutional context on individual behaviour to be limited when

controlling for individual level factors (Marien and Christensen, 2012). Nevertheless, this

leads us to examine the following hypotheses for the direct effects of the contextual factors:

6

Hypothesis2a (H2a): The context directly affects the propensity to vote.

Hypothesis2b (H2b): The context directly affects the propensity to be active in


Hypothesis2c (H2c): The context directly affects the propensity to be active in non-


In addition to a direct effect of the contextual factors, the context may also determine the

impact of social trust on political participation. To our knowledge, no previous studies have

examined this question for social trust.

Nevertheless, there are good reasons to expect the cultural factors to have a mediating effect

on how social trust affect political participation. Communities have a certain level of

(contextual) social trust, and within these contexts there are individuals with varying stocks

of individual social trust. Putnam (2000: 20) contends that there may be spillover-effects

from the societal level to individuals in the way that poorly connected individuals benefit

from a well-connected society. According to Uslaner (1999: 132) social capital will spread

more easily in contexts where the general level of social capital is already high. He further

claims that when individual social capital decreases, there will be less contextual social

capital to go around, which in turn will make its effects weaker (see also Field, 2003: 4041).

For the institutional factors, Freitag and Bhlmann (2009) find that power sharing

institutions promote social trust among citizens. Previous studies also suggest that the

institutional context may interact with individual level characteristics such as political trust

(Marien and Christensen, 2012) and political efficacy (Karp and Banducci, 2007) and thereby

indirectly shape political behaviour. Since power sharing institutions are expected to have a

positive influence on both political behaviour and levels of social trust, it is likely that there

is also a positive interaction between the two, leading social trust to have a stronger effect on

participation in power sharing democracies. In sum, we examine the following hypotheses

for the mediating effect of the context on the link between social trust and participation:

Hypothesis3a (H3a): The context mediates the effect of social trust on the propensity to

vote.

Hypothesis3b (H3b): The context mediates the effect of social trust on the propensity to be

active in institutionalised participation.

Hypothesis3c (H3c): The context mediates the effect of social trust on the propensity to be

active in non-institutionalised participation.

The following section outlines how we examine the hypotheses derived from the theory.

7

RESEARCH DESIGN

The data for studying the nine hypotheses come from the fourth round of the European

Social Survey from 2008 (ESS Round 4, 2008). In addition to the restriction to a European

context, the study is restricted to democratic countries in order to avoid conceptual

travelling (Sartori, 1970). For this reason, Turkey, Russia and Ukraine are excluded from the

study, since they are not rated as democracies. Israel has also been excluded since it is

geographically located outside of the European context. This leaves 25 countries1 and a total

of 47489 respondents, although some respondents are excluded from the analyses due to

missing data.

Political participation is measured by three variables which gauge the involvement in three

forms of political participation that have all been the topic for previous research2:

Voting: voted or not last national election.3

Institutionalised participation: Contacting politicians, Working for a political party,

and being member of a political party.

Non-institutionalised participation: Sign petitions, take part in public

demonstrations and boycott products.4

All three dependent variables are coded dichotomously. This means the study examines the

choice to become active rather than the extent of involvement. Since the questions used only

indicate if the respondent has performed each activity within the last 12 months and not

how often, any attempt to probe the extent of involvement is tentative at best (cf. Topf, 1995:

68).

The central independent variable is social trust, which is measured with the help of a

standard index based on three questions concerning the perceived trustworthiness of fellow

citizens: 1)Most people can be trusted or you can't be too careful; 2) Most people would try

to take advantage of you if they got the chance; 3) People try to be helpful (Cronbachs

alpha = 0.80). Although the measuring of a complex concept such as social trust is inherently

difficult in survey research (cf. Nannestad, 2008: 417), this measure is in line with the

standard approach and presents the best available opportunity for operationalizing the

concept. The index is coded to range between 0 and 1 with 1 indicating the highest level of

social trust.

The context is operationalized with measures that capture the central aspects of the cultural

and the institutional dimensions of the environment. The two variables used to capture the

cultural dimension are operationalised as follows:

State legitimacy (Gilley, 2006): Since we examine forms of political behaviour we use a

purely attitudinal measure that consists of views on legality and views of justification.

8

The variable has been coded to vary between 0 and 1 with 1 indicating the highest

extent of state legitimacy for a country.

Contextual social trust: This is the social trust measure at the individual level

aggregated to the country level. The measure has been coded to vary between 0 and 1

with 1 indicating the highest extent of contextual social trust for a country.

For the institutional dimension, the two aspects are operationalised as follows:

The effective electoral threshold: The effective threshold gauges how easy it is for

political parties to win representation in parliament (Powell, 2000). This is calculated

as 75 %/( M + 1) (M = number of seats allocated) and ranges between 0 and 37.5 as the

highest theoretical value. Values taken from Lundell and Karvonen (2008). Recoded

to vary between 0 and 1 with 1 indicating lowest effective threshold.

Fiscal decentralisation denotes the proportion of local and regional spending in

relation to the total spending (Morales, 2009: 170). The percentages come from IMF

Government finance statistics. Ranges between 0 (no decentralisation) and 100

(totally decentralised). The values are since recoded to vary between 0 and 1 with 1

denoting the highest extent of decentralisation (Switzerland =0.44) since the notion of

a totally decentralised state is unrealistic.

All four contextual variables are coded to vary between 0 and 1, with 1 denoting high

legitimacy/contextual social trust/power sharing.

The control variables are all found at the individual level and they include age, gender and

education, which are three socio-demographic aspects known to influence political

behaviour (Marien et al., 2010). The analyses also control for political interest and left-right

ideology, which has been known to affect the likelihood of engagement in different political

activities (Barnes, Kaase et al., 1979; Norris, 2002). These control variables are also coded to

vary between 0 and 1.

The appropriate method of analysis is multilevel logistic analysis since the data is nested in

countries and the dependent variables are dichotomous (Snijders and Bosker, 1999: 215216).

Since all variables are coded to vary from 0-1, the estimated coefficient for an explanatory

variable indicates increase or decrease in the logit of the odds ratio of the dependent variable

(participate or not) when the independent variable changes from its minimum to its

maximum value. As is customary, the explanatory variables are centred around the grand

mean to achieve stable models (Hox, 2002: 62). For ease of interpretation, central estimates

are translated into odds ratios by taking the exponential of the estimates.

ANALYSIS

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Before examining the hypotheses, we scrutinize the distribution of the key variables among

the countries included in the study.

Table 1 Country level distribution of central variables, ESS 2008.

Political participation Cultural context Institutional context

Voted last general election

Institutional participation

Non-institutional participation

Social trust State

legitimacy

Effective electoral threshold

Fiscal decen-tralisation

Percentage have done Mean scores

Belgium 92.1 19.2 33.3 0.53 0.57 0.76 0.33

Bulgaria 72.8 9.8 9.8 0.36 0.29 0.89 0.20

Croatia 78.9 16.7 30.0 0.42 0.34 0.85 0.23

Cyprus 93.4 24.5 11.1 0.45 - 0.90 0.07

Czech Republic

58.0 17.7 19.0 0.48 0.37 0.87 0.35

Denmark 94.2 24.0 47.4 0.68 0.82 0.95 0.79

Estonia 64.7 15.2 12.3 0.54 0.39 0.79 0.32

Finland 83.2 25.1 47.7 0.63 0.74 0.86 0.58

France 77.6 17.5 48.4 0.49 0.57 0.00 0.32

Germany 83.7 19.2 47.7 0.53 0.72 0.87 0.76

Greece 87.9 15.4 18.3 0.36 0.41 0.68 0.02

Hungary 80.2 9.1 11.2 0.43 0.46 0.47 0.32

Ireland 79.4 26.2 33.1 0.59 0.78 0.60 0.21

Latvia 62.9 12.0 13.4 0.48 0.41 0.87 0.41

Netherlands 86.0 18.8 28.8 0.59 0.73 0.98 0.26

Norway 85.7 26.4 47.6 0.65 0.81 0.89 0.35

Poland 72.8 8.4 10.5 0.42 0.49 0.87 0.40

Portugal 73.7 8.5 8.3 0.42 0.65 0.83 0.19

Romania 67.8 15.2 7.9 0.36 0.24 0.87 0.46

Slovakia 77.7 8.5 25.6 0.43 0.33 0.87 0.18

Slovenia 72.6 14.7 12.6 0.47 0.39 0.80 0.23

Spain 81.9 11.7 26.8 0.49 0.63 0.74 0.58

Sweden 91.1 19.2 61.0 0.64 0.70 0.89 0.80

Switzerland 64.5 17.1 47.8 0.59 0.62 0.77 1.00

UK 70.3 18.6 46.5 0.55 0.64 0.00 0.20

Total 77.8 16.5 28.9 0.50 0.55 0.74 0.39

Note: The entries for the participatory activities indicate the percentage of the populations who indicate having been active in voting, institutionalised participation or non-institutionalised participation. The entries for the contextual factors indicate mean scores across countries. Data weighted with design weight.

As can be seen, there are important differences in the extent of political involvement in the

countries under scrutiny. When it comes to electoral participation, the majority indicate

having voted in the last general election in all countries. Although self-reporting does not

perfectly measure the actual extent of voter turnout, there is little doubt that this is the most

popular political activity in Europe despite the fears raised over falling levels of electoral

turnout. For the institutionalised activities, only 8.5 per cent of the population in Slovakia

have done at least one of these activities within the last 12 months, whereas the highest

active proportion is found in Norway, where 26.4 per cent have done one of these activities

within the last 12 months. Hence, even the highest level of participation is considerably

10

lower than the lowest electoral turnout. The participation rates are more diverse for non-

institutionalised participation, where only 7.9 per cent performed one of these activities in

Romania within the last 12 months compared to a high of 61 per cent in Sweden.

For the four contextual factors, it should be noted that there is limited variation for two

factors, namely contextual social trust and the effective electoral threshold. Whereas the lack

of variation in the effective electoral threshold is due to the limited variation in this regard in

a European context, the limited variation for contextual social trust was to be expected. The

values tend to cluster around the mean since it is unlikely that any society would consist of

individuals who completely trust or distrust other citizens. Hence, the results for these

factors should be interpreted with some caution.

Moving on to the central research question of the role of social trust at the individual level

and the interplay with the context in explaining political participation, the first three

hypotheses concern the effect of social trust on the three forms of political participation.

Table 2 displays information on the analyses concerning these hypotheses. For each form of

participation, three models are displayed. Model 0 is an empty model that decomposes the

variance into group and individual level. Model 1 only includes social trust as an

explanatory variable to examine the relationship, whereas model 2 includes the control

variables to ensure that the relationship is robust.

Table 2 Multilevel logistic analyses of individual level effects on Voting, Institutionalised participation, and Non-Institutionalised participation.

Voting Institutionalised Non-institutionalised

Model 0 Model 1 Model 2 Model 0 Model 1 Model 2 Model 0 Model 1 Model 2

Fixed Part

Constant 1.27

(0.12)*** 1.29

(0.11)*** 1.58

(0.12)*** -1.60

(0.08)*** -1.61

(0.08)*** -1.77

(0.08)*** -0.93

(0.16)*** -0.95

(0.15)*** -0.93

(0.16)***

Social trust

0.96 (0.20)***

0.62 (0.16)***

0.25 (0.11)*

-0.12 (0.12)

0.65 (0.09)***

0.30 (0.11)**

Age

2.80 (0.26)***

0.62 (0.17)***

-1.15 (0.18)***

Gender

-0.13 (0.02)***

0.19 (0.04)***

-0.18 (0.05)***

Education

0.77 (0.12)***

0.64 (0.07)***

0.92 (0.07)***

Political interest

1.64 (0.11)***

1.83 (0.09)***

1.33 (0.08)***

Ideology

0.41 (0.14)***

-0.13 (0.11)

-0.54 (0.14)***

Random Part

Country level

Between country error variance

0.34 (0.07)***

0.33 (0.07)***

0.41 (0.09)***

0.16 (0.03)***

0.15 (0.03)***

0.12 (0.03)***

0.68 (0.11)***

0.61 (0.10)***

0.54 (0.10)***

Estimated intra class correlation (ICC)

0.09 0.09 0.11 0.05 0.04 0.03 0.17 0.16 0.14

Respondents (countries)

43497 (25)

43002 (25)

37285 (25)

47143 (25)

46583 (25)

39956 (25)

47113 (25)

46546 (25)

39886 (25)

Note: The entries are estimates of multilevel logistic regression with standard errors in parenthesis. Since all variables are coded 0-1, the coefficients indicate

increase or decrease in the logit of the odds ratio of the dependent variable when the independent variable moves from 0 to 1. Data weighted with design weight. Data weighted with design weight. ICC estimated as p = var (uj)/(var (uj) + 2/3) (Snijders & Bosker 1999: 224). *p

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The ICC scores in the null models show the extent of variation at the group level. As can be

seen, this is highest for non-institutionalised participation, where about 17 per cent of the

variance is at the country level, whereas it is relatively low for institutionalised participation,

where only 5 per cent is at the country level. Nonetheless, simulation studies suggest that

even modest levels of ICC can make tests of significance in traditional linear models too

liberal (Barcikowski, 1981).

As expected, the results for voting show that social trust has a significant positive impact on

the propensity to vote. The estimate of 0.62 in the model 2 corresponds to an odds ratio of

1,87, meaning those with the highest level of social trust are almost two times as likely to be

active compared to those with the lowest level of social trust when holding other factors

constant. Hypothesis 1a is therefore confirmed by the results. For institutionalised

participation, a weak propensity for social trust to enhance the likelihood of being active is

found in model 1, but the effect disappears in model 2 when controlling for other factors.

Hence, it is not possible to conclude that there is any effect of social trust on this form of

participation and H1b has to be rejected. Nevertheless, when it comes to non-

institutionalised participation, we find, in line with the expectations, a positive effect on the

propensity to become active. The initial estimate of 0.65 found in model 1 drops to 0.30 when

controlling for other factors. Although not particularly strong, this estimate equals an odds

ratio of 1.35, meaning those with the highest level of social trust are about one third more

likely to be active compared to those with the lowest level of social trust. This means that the

results validate H1c.

Moving on to the question of contextual effects for political participation and H2a- H2c,

table 3 displays the results for each of the four contextual factors for the three forms of

participation.5

12

Table 3 Multilevel logistic regression of individual and contextual effects on Voting, Institutionalised participation, and Non-Institutionalised participation.


M3 M4 M5 M6 M3 M4 M5 M6 M3 M4 M5 M6

Fixed Part

Constant 1.54

(0.12)*** 1.58

(0.13)*** 1.58

(0.13)*** 1.57

(0.13)*** -1.80

(0.07)*** -1.78

(0.07)*** -1.78

(0.08)*** -1.78

(0.08)*** -0.93

(0.12)*** -1.00

(0.12)*** -0.93

(0.15)*** -0.94

(0.13)***

Social trust 0.64

(0.08)*** 0.62

(0.08)*** 0.63

(0.08)*** 0.63

(0.08)*** -0.11 (0.13)

-0.14 (0.12)

-0.12 (0.12)

-0.12 (0.12)

0.33 (0.07)***

0.31 (0.07)***

0.30 (0.07)***

0.31 (0.07)***

Age 2.81

(0.09)*** 2.80

(0.09)*** 2.81

(0.09)*** 2.80

(0.09)*** 0.60

(0.17)*** 0.62

(0.17)*** 0.62

(0.17)*** 0.62

(0.17)*** -1.24

(0.07)*** -1.22

(0.07)*** -1.17

(0.07)*** -1.19

(0.07)***

Gender -0.13

(0.03)*** -0.13

(0.03)*** -0.13

(0.03)*** -0.13

(0.03)*** 0.18

(0.04)*** 0.19

(0.04)*** 0.19

(0.04)*** 0.19

(0.04)*** -0.20

(0.02)*** -0.19

(0.02)*** -0.18

(0.02)*** -0.19

(0.02)***

Education 0.78

(0.05)*** 0.78

(0.05)*** 0.78

(0.05)*** 0.77

(0.05)*** 0.65

(0.07)*** 0.64

(0.07)*** 0.64

(0.07)*** 0.64

(0.07)*** 0.97

(0.04)*** 0.97

(0.04)*** 0.93

(0.04)*** 0.95

(0.04)***

Political interest 1.67

(0.06)*** 1.64

(0.05)*** 1.65

(0.05)*** 1.65

(0.05)*** 1.86

(0.08)*** 1.83

(0.08)*** 1.83

(0.09)*** 1.83

(0.09)*** 1.43

(0.05)*** 1.40

(0.05)*** 1.35

(0.04)*** 1.38

(0.05)***

Ideology 0.41

(0.07)*** 0.41

(0.07)*** 0.41

(0.07)*** 0.41

(0.07)*** -0.12 (0.12)

-0.13 (0.11)

-0.13 (0.11)

-0.13 (0.11)

-0.58 (0.06)***

-0.57 (0.05)***

-0.55 (0.05)***

-0.56 (0.05)***

State legitimacy 0.89

(0.70) 0.61

(0.39) 2.87

(0.66)***

Contextual social trust

-0.33 (1.43)

1.29 (0.67)^

5.66 (1.24)***

Effective threshold

0.52 (0.53)

0.11 (0.16)

-0.72 (0.60)

Fiscal decentralisation

-0.50 (0.54)

-0.11 (0.21)

1.65 (0.54)***

Random Part

Between country error variance

0.36 (0.10)***

0.43 (0.12)***

0.42 (0.12)***

0.41 (0.12)***

0.10 (0.02)***

0.11 (0.03)***

0.12 (0.03)***

0.12 (0.03)***

0.32 (0.09)***

0.32 (0.09)***

0.55 (0.16)***

0.41 (0.12)***

ICC 0.10 0.12 0.11 0.11 0.03 0.03 0.03 0.03 0.09 0.09 0.14 0.11

Respondents (countries)

36331 (24)

37285 (25)

37285 (25)

37285 (25)

38960 (24)

39956 (25)

39956 (25)

39956 (25)

38882 (24)

39886 (25)

39886 (25)

39886 (25)

Note: The entries are estimates of multilevel logistic regression with standard errors in parenthesis. Since all variables are coded 0-1, the coefficients indicate increase or decrease in the logit of the odds ratio of the dependent variable when the independent variable moves from 0 to 1. Data weighted with design weight. ICC estimated as p = var (uj)/(var (uj) +

2/3) (Snijders & Bosker 1999: 224). ^p

13

decentralised country is 5.2 times more likely to participate compared to an average citizen

in a totally centralised country. These findings indicate how important contextual factors are

for this form of participation and H2c is therefore verified.

However, the context does not only matter through direct effects, it can also affect the link

between social trust and political participation. To examine H3aH3c we include cross level

interaction effects for each of the contextual effects and social trust. The models are random

slope models that allow the coefficient of social trust to vary across country. For reasons of

space, we only display the significant results. These show how the propensity to be active

develops in the extreme contextual cases at different levels of social trust when holding all

other factors constant. Table 4 displays the significant interaction effects found for each form

of participation.

Table 4 Multilevel logistic regression of individual, contextual and cross-level interaction effects on Voting, Institutionalised participation, and Non-Institutionalised participation.


M 7 M 8 M 9 M10 M 7 M8 M7 M8 M9

Fixed Part

Constant 1.55

(0.13)*** 1.51

(0.12)*** 1.54

(0.13)*** 1.54

(0.13)*** -1.76

(0.08)*** -1.76

(0.08)*** -0.91

(0.15)*** -0.91

(0.12)*** -0.97

(0.12)***

Social trust 0.71

(0.16)*** 0.79

(0.14)*** 0.73

(0.13)*** 0.71

(0.15)*** -0.17 (0.12)

-0.17 (0.11)

0.26 (0.12)*

0.34 (0.11)**

0.33 (0.11)**

Age 2.77

(0.09)*** 2.78

(0.09)*** 2.77

(0.09)*** 2.78

(0.09)*** 0.63

(0.17)*** 0.63

(0.17)*** -1.14

(0.07)*** -1.23

(0.07)*** -1.20

(0.07)***

Gender -0.13

(0.03)*** -0.13

(0.03)*** -0.13

(0.03)*** -0.13

(0.03)*** 0.19

(0.04)*** 0.19

(0.04)*** -0.18

(0.02)*** -0.21

(0.02)*** -0.20

(0.02)***

Education 0.76

(0.05)*** 0.77

(0.05)*** 0.76

(0.05)*** 0.76

(0.05)*** 0.64

(0.07)*** 0.64

(0.07)*** 0.92

(0.04)*** 0.97

(0.04)*** 0.97

(0.04)***

Political interest 1.63

(0.05)*** 1.66

(0.05)*** 1.64

(0.05)*** 1.64

(0.05)*** 1.83

(0.08)*** 1.83

(0.08)*** 1.34

(0.04)*** 1.44

(0.05)*** 1.41

(0.05)***

Ideology 0.41

(0.06)*** 0.41

(0.07)*** 0.41

(0.07)*** 0.42

(0.07)*** -0.13 (0.11)

-0.13 (0.11)

-0.54 (0.05)***

-0.58 (0.06)***

-0.57 (0.06)***

State legitimacy 0.84

(0.69)

2.90 (0.67)***


-0.41 (1.39)

5.72 (1.25)***

Effective threshold

0.10

(0.16)

Fiscal decentralisation

-0.52 (0.53)

Social trust * state legitimacy

2.07

(0.81)*

-1.93 (0.61)**

Social trust * Contextual social trust

5.25 (1.47)***

-3.33 (1.19)**

Social trust * Effective threshold

0.77

(0.30)*

Social trust * Fiscal decentralisation

1.68 (0.61)**

Random Part: Country level

Country level variance 0.40

(0.11)*** 0.34

(0.10)*** 0.41

(0.12)*** 0.39

(0.11)*** 0.12

(0.03)*** 0.12

(0.03)*** 0.56

(0.16)*** 0.33

(0.10)*** 0.33

(0.09)***

Covariance -0.15

(0.10)* -0.16

(0.09)^ -0.11 (0.09)

-0.10 (0.09)

-0.13 (0.03)*

-0.14 (0.03)***

-0.15 (0.09)*

-0.03 (0.06)

0.00 (0.06)

Social trust slope variance 0.45

(0.17)* 0.32

(0.14)* 0.28

(0.12)* 0.36

(0.15)* 0.24

(0.09)* 0.21

(0.09)* 0.25

(0.10)* 0.15

(0.08)^ 0.17

(0.08)*

ICC 0.11 0.09 0.11 0.11 0.03 0.03 0.14 0.09 0.09

Respondents (country) 37285 (25) 36331 (24) 37285 (25) 37285 (25) 39956 (25) 39956 (25) 39886 (25) 38882 (24) 39886 (25)

Note: The entries are estimates of multilevel logistic regression with standard errors in parenthesis. Since all variables are coded 0-1, the coefficients indicate increase or decrease in the logit of the odds ratio of the dependent variable when the independent variable moves from 0 to 1. Data weighted with design weight. ICC estimated as p = var (uj)/(var (uj) +

2/3) (Snijders & Bosker 1999: 224). ^p

14

Model 7 for each of the three forms of participation introduces a random slope for social

trust. The results here suggest that the effects of social trust vary across countries for all

three forms of participation, since a joint test of the two new parameters covariance and

slope variance is significant according to an approximate Wald test with 2 degrees of

freedom.

For voting, models M8-M10 show that there are three significant interaction effects,

indicating that there are differences in the effect of social trust dependent on the context

despite the lack of direct contextual effects. The first significant interaction effect is between

state legitimacy and social trust, where the interaction effect of 2.07 implies that social trust

has a stronger effect on the propensity to vote when the extent of state legitimacy is high.

However, even though the differences are significant, the practical implications are limited

since the differences are small, especially considering that the extreme values are unlikely to

be encountered in real life situations. In a similar vein, there is a significant interaction effect

for contextual social trust. In this case the significant estimate of 5.25 indicates that the effect

of social trust is weaker in a situation of high contextual social trust compared to a situation

of low social trust. The differences are more pronounced than for state legitimacy, but again,

the practical implications may be less notable given that the extreme values are again

hypothetical. There is a significant interaction effect for one of the institutional variables,

since fiscal decentralisation has a significant interaction with social trust of 1.68. This

estimate implies that the effect of social trust is significantly weaker when there is a high

extent of fiscal decentralisation. Although the practical significance of these estimates may

be limited due to the overall high levels of voter turnout and the hypothetical nature of

some of the extreme values, the results nonetheless indicate the potential importance of

considering the context when estimating the effect of social trust on voting behaviour.

Hence, these findings suggest that the context mediates the effect of social trust on voting

and H3a is therefore approved.

For institutionalised participation, we find one significant interaction effects between social

trust and the effective electoral threshold shown in model 8, even if the estimate for social

trust is not significant. This result indicates that the effect is stronger when the effective

electoral threshold is at its maximum value. In other words, power sharing increases the

impact of social trust on the propensity to be active in institutionalised activities and people

with high social trust are more likely to become active within the political system when

more parties are competing for electoral victories. Although the estimates for the cultural

contextual effects are not significant, this nonetheless indicates that the context can mediate

the effect of social trust on participation in institutionalised activities and H3b is therefore

supported by the evidence.

Finally for the non-institutionalised activities, Models 8 and 9 show the significant

interaction effects for the two cultural indicators and social trust. For state legitimacy, there

is a negative coefficient of -1.93 for the interaction with social trust. A similar result is found

15

for contextual social trust, where the negative interaction coefficient is -3.33. Since it is only

for non-institutionalised participation that the contextual factors had both significant direct

effects and interaction effects, we use these last two results to visualise the importance of the

interaction effects.

Figure 1 Interaction effects for non-institutionalised participation

Social trust * State legitimacy Social trust * Contextual social trust

Note: The full lines represent the effect of social trust on non-institutionalised participation when the contextual factors are at their maximum value. The dotted

lines represent the effect of social trust on non-institutionalised participation when the contextual factors are at their minimum value. All other factors are held

constant at their mean value. See table 4 for more specific information.

As can be seen, the negative coefficient of -1.93 entails that the effect of social trust on the

propensity to be active in non-institutionalised activities depends on the legitimacy of the

state. The likelihood of being active in non-institutionalised participation is much higher

when the state is legitimate in the eyes of citizens, as indicated by the full line. Furthermore,

the effect of social trust is stronger in this situation, since the slope of the line is steeper than

the dotted line representing a situation where the state is completely illegitimate, meaning

the difference between the two lines increases as social trust rises. This entails that the

probability of participation increases from 0.53 to 0.60 as social trust moves from 01 when

state legitimacy is 1 compared to a limited increase from 0.07 to 0.09 when state legitimacy is

0. The same is true for contextual social trust, where the coefficient of -3.33 means that the

effect of social trust is much stronger when there is a high extent of social trust among

citizens. Here the probability of participation increases from 0.80 to 0.84 when the contextual

social trust is highest compared to an increase of 0.02 to 0.03 when contextual social trust is

at its lowest value. Hence these findings entail that H3c is approved.

0.00

0.20

0.40

0.60

0.80

1.00

0.00 0.20 0.40 0.60 0.80 1.00

State legitimacy = 0 State legitimacy = 1

0.00

0.20

0.40

0.60

0.80

1.00

0.00 0.20 0.40 0.60 0.80 1.00

Contextual social trust = 0 Contextual social trust = 1

16

DISCUSSION OF THE RESULTS

The connection between social capital and political participation has been controversial in

the literature ever since the seminal work of Putnam (1993, 2000). The bulk of literature has

focused on the influence of the associational network component of the concept, whereas the

social trust component has been somewhat neglected since much research has indicated that

this dimension was less relevant for predicting involvement in different forms of

participation (Bck, 2011; van Deth, 2001; Milner, 2000; Muhlberger, 2003; Pattie et al., 2003).

In line with this, we generally found that social trust was linked positively to voting,

institutionalised participation, and non-institutionalised participation, but the link was

weakened considerably when controlling for other factors, and in the case of

institutionalised participation, even grew insignificant. This finding thus confirms previous

studies suggesting that social trust may have a positive effect on social outcomes such as

political participation, but the effect appears to be limited compared to other factors at the

individual level (cf. Nannestad, 2008: 428430).

However, this account neglects the possibility that the effect of social trust is dependent on

contextual factors. For this reason, we examined the interplay between social trust, political

participation, and the context understood as central cultural and institutional aspects. The

findings here suggested that the cultural and institutional contextual aspects were less

relevant for predicting voting and institutionalised participation, but it did promote

participation in non-institutionalised activities outside the formal political sphere. The

cultural aspects of state legitimacy and contextual social trust in particular had strong

positive impacts on being active, but power sharing institutions in the form of fiscal

decentralisation was also a significant predictor. This finding thus confirms previous results

that the context can have a significant direct impact on the propensity to be active at the

individual level (Almond and Verba, 1963; Morales, 2009; Dalton et al., 2010). Nevertheless,

the effect in particular of political institutions is often fragmentary and depends on the

form of participation under consideration and what specific institutional aspect is seen as

important (Christensen, 2011).

The most remarkable finding concerned the interaction between the contextual elements and

social trust in shaping political participation. Here the results suggested that the effect of

social trust on participation is linked to the context, but the specific effect depends both on

the form of participation and the contextual aspect under consideration. The cultural aspects

appeared to be of particular relevance, since state legitimacy and contextual social trust had

significant mediating effects for both voting and non-institutionalised participation.

However, the institutional aspects also mediated the effect of social trust, since there were

significant effects between social trust and fiscal decentralisation for voting and between the

effective electoral threshold and social trust for institutionalised participation. Although the

contextual effects on participation depend on both form of participation and contextual

aspect under scrutiny, the cultural and institutional factors both increase the effect of social

17

trust on the propensity to be active in the political activities under consideration. These

results thus show that the impact of social trust on participation to a large extent depends on

the context where the activities take place. In this sense, this study helps explain the

divergent findings in previous literature when it comes to the impact of social trust on

political participation.

18

Appendix: Coding of variables and descriptive statistics

Variable Questions and coding N Min Max Mean Std VIF

Dependent variables

Voting

Question: Some people don't vote nowadays for one reason or another. Did you vote in the last [country] national election in [month/year]? Coded 0/1 with 1 indicating having voted.

43001 0.00 1.00 0.78 0.42

Institutionalised participation

Index based on three answers to questions concerning the following activities: 1) Contacted a politician, government or local government official.(See non-institutionalised activities for phrasing) 2) Worked in a political party or action group. (See non-institutionalised activities for phrasing) 3) Are you a member of any political party? Coded 0/1 with 1 indicating having performed at least one of the activities.

47143 0.00 1.00 0.17 0.37

Non-institutionalised participation

Index based on three answers to question: There are different ways of trying to improve things in [country] or help prevent things from going wrong. During the last 12 months, have you done any of the following?: 1) Signed a petition. 2) Taken part in a lawful public demonstration. 3) Boycotted certain products. Coded 0/1 with 1 indicating having performed at least one of the activities.

47106 0.00 1.00 0.29 0.45

Independent variables, contextual variables and control variables

Social trust

Composite index based on 3 questions: 1)Most people can be trusted or you can't be too careful; 2) Most people would try to take advantage of you if they got the chance; 3) People try to be helpful. All scored on scale 0-10; Index coded 0-1 with 1 highest level of

social trust (Cronbachs alpha = 0.80)

46918 0.00 1.00 0.50 0.20 1.278

State legitimacy Index of attitudes towards state legitimacy from Gilley (2006). Recoded to vary between 0-1 with 1 indicating high state legitimacy.

46274 0.24 0.82 0.55 0.17 3.293


Mean country scores for social trust, coded to vary between 0-1 with 1

indicating highest extent of contextual social trust. 47489 0.36 0.68 0.50 0.09 3.961

Effective

electoral

threshold

Calculated as 75 %/( M + 1) (M = number of seats allocated). Ranges between 0 and 37.5 as the highest theoretical value (Lundell and

Karvonen, 2008) . Recoded to vary between 0 and 1 with 1 indicating lowest effective threshold.

47489 0.00 0.98 0.74 0.26 1.135

Fiscal

decentralisation

Values from IMF Government finance statistics. Ranges between 0

(no decentralisation) and 100 (totally decentralised). Since the notion

of a totally decentralised state is unrealistic, the max value is subsequently coded with the highest extent of decentralisation

(Switzerland =0.44) as the maximum value 1.

47489 0.02 1.00 0.39 0.24 1.574

Age Age in years divided by 100. 47335 0.15 1.23 0.47 0.18 1.066

Gender Gender of respondent; Dichotomous 0/1, 1=male. 47467 0.00 1.00 0.47 0.50 1.023

Education Highest level of education achieved? Coded to vary between 0-1 with 1 highest level of education.

47384 0.00 1.00 0.52 0.33 1.147

Left/right-ideology

Left/right ideology where 0 left and 10 right. Coded to vary between 0-1, 1 = right.

40683 0.00 1.00 0.51 0.22 1.008

Political Interest How interested in politics? Recoded to vary between 0-1, 0= Not at all interested, 1 = Very

interested.

47355 0.00 1.00 0.45 0.30 1.165

19

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ENDNOTES

1 Lithuania is excluded since the data set does not include appropriate weights. 2 More information on coding and descriptive statistics for all variables is available in the appendix. 3 Although self-reporting is not a perfect measure of actual voting (see Bck, 2011: 78), it is the best available

for the present purposes. 4 An exploratory factor analysis for the 6 items included in institutionalised and non-institutionalised

participation show that they load onto two separate dimensions in accordance with this distinction. Two items

(work other organisation and wear badge) were excluded since the phrasing of the question does not make it

possible whether the activity was aimed at the formal political system or not. 5 Since the VIF scores indicate that there may be issues with multicollinearity among the contextual factors (see

appendix) and there are a limited number of countries included in the study, we refrain from examining the

contextual factors simultaneously. 6 Although not shown for reasons of space, simple linear regression models suggest that more contextual

estimates have significant effects, but the effects evaporate once controlling for the individual variables.

Social Trust and Political Participation

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