Regional inequalities and political trust in a global context

Climate change, health pandemics, structural decline, and more - the challenges of solving political problems are daunting, particularly when the political institutions addressing them are not trusted. This article tests the economic theory that residents of high-income regions are more likely to tr...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of European public policy 2024-06, Vol.31 (6), p.1516-1535
Main Author: Dellmuth, Lisa
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Central government
Climate change
Democracy
Economic theory
Legitimacy
Pandemics
political confidence
Political institutions
Political systems
political trust
Regional inequalities
Regions
social legitimacy
Socioeconomic factors
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Climate change, health pandemics, structural decline, and more - the challenges of solving political problems are daunting, particularly when the political institutions addressing them are not trusted. This article tests the economic theory that residents of high-income regions are more likely to trust political institutions, given their positive experiences with services and opportunities, against the rival argument that predicts a negative effect of regional disadvantage within a country on political trust. Using European Values Study and World Values Survey (2017-2020) data, combined with socioeconomic data for 606 regions in 42 countries, this paper analyses samples of regions both in and outside the EU. The results suggest that people living in wealthy EU regions - both in absolute and relative terms - trust national government more and the EU less. In the global sample, the evidence is more variegated and corroborates economic theory only in democracies. The article sketches implications for regional inequality, political trust, and legitimacy research.
ISSN:1350-1763
1466-4429
1466-4429
DOI:10.1080/13501763.2023.2269207