Trust in Political Institutions: The Nordic Countries Compared with Europe

Ola Listhaug and Kristen Ringdal The Norwegian University of Science and Technology

Paper prepared for the Norwegian Political Science Meeting, NTNU, Trondheim, January 3-5, 2007

Data are from the 2004 European Social Survey made available by The Norwegian Social Science Data Services

Abstract
Using data from the 2004 European Social Survey we study where the Nordic countries rank on political trust when compared with other countries in Europe. Citizens trust in the major political institutions is important for the state of democracy as well as for the functioning of broader social and economic processes in society. Our findings confirm previous research showing that the Nordic countries rank very high in political trust in national institutions. The empirical analysis shows that the high trust levels in the Nordic countries may be explained as a combination of compositional effects and macro characteristics. The compositional effects are caused by favorable scores on the indicators of the countrys performance, especially on the evaluation of the economy, and on indicators of political distance between government and citizens. The macro effects are caused by the top positions of the Nordic countries on the Human Development Index, which again reflects the good living conditions in these countries.

Introduction
In this paper we study where the Nordic countries rank on political trust when compared with other countries in Europe. Citizens trust in the major institutions in a society is important for the state of democracy as well as for the functioning of broader social and economic processes in a society. High trust levels signal that institutions are working effectively, thus reducing the chance that non-democratic forms of government will receive support. High trust levels facilitate social and economic exchange and reduce transaction costs in markets. Trust reduces the need for control and supervision, which saves money for government as well as for firms and other actors in the private sector. In the comparative dimension countries with high trust will be at an advantage in attracting investments, trade, and tourism. For these reasons we see political trust as a success criterion for societies. Based on what we know from previous research the Nordic countries place favorably on political trust measures. While we know that the Nordic score high on political trust we know little about what can explain this pattern. Is there a peculiar quality to the Nordic countries - a Nordic model (sterud 2005) or is the success of these countries in creating political trust among citizens, primarily a reflection of the fact that they are small, rich, and homogenous in social and economic terms, such that we will find that other countries that share these characteristics also will have high levels of political trust? High trust levels are in most cases possible to achieve only when institutions receive support from major social and political groups in society. This is an indicator that social integration is working successfully. At a time when cleavages in societies may regain their important due to immigration of groups that differ by religion and other cultural aspects from native populations, support for institutions that bind groups together will become increasingly important. The recent territorial expansion of the European Union, the establishment of the European Economic Area, and the Schengen treaty area are factors that facilitate geographical mobility, and, indirectly, contributes to the increasing ethnic diversity of European countries. Trust in political institutions is part of a wider concept of political trust that builds on a classification by Easton (1965) and is available in a more recent version by Norris (1999b). This conceptualization classifies trust in a hierarchy that goes from specific to general: Political actors (elected political officials and political leaders, regime institutions (electoral institutions, order institutions, public service institutions), regime performance (evaluation of how the actual democracy works), regime principles (support for the basic ideas of democracy), and political community (identification with the nation). Political trust is not limited to the nation state but is increasingly relevant at supranational level. In Europe trust in the European Union is crucial as EU is in a process of increasing its political authority over the member states, and the success of the Union will depend on how strongly the evolving institutions are able to connect with the identifications and interests of the publics in the member states. The EU might be successful in economic terms, but a broader cultural unity is lacking. In the words of Johan P. Olsen: "The EC/EU has had some success in conceptualizing European as an economic unit, but less so with the idea of political, cultural, and 3

social unity in Europe based on a common heritage such as Christendom, Latin, and Roman Law, or common, future projects" (Olsen 1995: 26). The more than ten years that has passed since this remark has increased its relevance due to the increased political and cultural diversity of the EU resulting from the inclusion of new member states from Eastern Europe, and the potential inclusion of Turkey, a major Muslim country. It seems obvious that citizens trust in EU institutions is a key measure of the success of the European Union in establishing a more firmly grounded legitimacy. In this paper we restrict the analysis of political trust at the EU level to the support for the European Parliament. Our expectations for trust in the EU institutions are different from what we expect for national institutions. The Nordic countries have had a problematic relationship to the European. Norway has twice rejected membership in national referendums. Iceland is not a member, and Denmark, member since 1973, has at several occasions been at odds with EU on important policy directions and institutional reforms. Sweden and Finland became members in 1995. Finland has had some success in mobilizing public support for EU institutions, while Swedish mass publics have been quite negative to membership. We expect that trust in the European parliament will reflect the basic EU orientations and experiences with EU membership and show a quite different pattern across the five countries than trust in national political institutions. Recent research: Trends and comparisons Recent research on trust in institutions and other aspects of political trust has been overwhelmingly associated with concerns for trends is trust declining or not? The large Beliefs in Government project of the European Science Foundation (BIG) published its findings in 1995 (but time series data ended c. 1990) and concluded that there was no general decline in political trust in Western Europe (Klingemann and Fuchs 1995). Pippa Norris (1999a) concluded her follow up on BIG extending the time series past the mid 1990s and broadening the data to cover non-Western countries that citizens remained committed to the values of democracy, but had become more critical to the core institutions of democracy. In the most recent work on trends in political trust Russell Dalton demonstrated that political trust is declining in advanced industrial countries (Dalton 2004). The Third Wave of democratization and the process of globalization have stimulated studies that take a closer look at political trust in a comparative perspective. Much of the comparative research on political trust uses data from the European Values Study/World Values Survey (EVS/WVS). These surveys have been performed in more than 80 countries and territories covering all inhabited continents and constitute the most global dataset that we have of relevant data on trust. All surveys have included at least some questions on political trust, and some of the survey waves have had political trust and support of democracy as a major topic. Using Values survey data from 1995-1997 Klingemann (1999) found that support for democratic ideals and principles are robust in all parts of the world, but the support is somewhat stronger in Western Europe than in the rest of the countries. Listhaug and Aardal (2003) performed a detailed analysis of variations of democratic support in Europe using EVS data from 1999/2000. On the basis of Freedom House indicators and building on previous research by Klingemann (1999) - they classified European countries in three groups stable democracies (countries in Western 4

Europe), new democracies (most of the post-communist countries in Central- and Eastern Europe), and transitional democracies (Croatia, Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus). They compared these countries on five dimensions of political trust: How the current system is rated relative to the communist regime, satisfaction with how democracy is developing, rejection of non-democratic forms of government, rejection of criticism of democracy, and support for democracy as principle. They found that on all dimensions, support levels are higher in stable democracies than in new democracies and that the transitional regimes on most of the indicators have the lowest trust readings. The negative findings for new democracies and transitional regimes remain when they control for an extensive set of variables that are related to trust. In an extension of this analysis Anderson et al. (2005) showed that the gap in political trust between winners and losers is larger in new democracies and transitional regimes than in the stable democracies in Western Europe. While it is quite normal that voters who support parties that lose elections will become less trusting toward the political system, the gap between losers and winners should be kept within a reasonable size. With the definitions and measures that we use it is difficult to decide when the gap is outside a boundary where the low trust of losers can be a critical factor for the survival of the democratic system. The study by Listhaug and Aardal (2003) provides some information about the rankings of the Nordic countries. This study is based on the European Values Study data from 1999/2000 and only Denmark, Finland, and Sweden are included. Among these countries Denmark has consistent the highest ranking, and Denmark is also one of the countries with the strongest support for democratic values among all European countries. Sweden, and, especially, Finland, showed a somewhat lower support level. One could argue that for all stable democracies the support levels for democratic values are so high that variations within this group are not necessarily of importance. For established democracies it might me more meaningful to compare trust levels in the medium and lower levels of the trust hierarchy like confidence in institutions and trust in politicians. With data from the first two waves of the European Values Study in 1981 and 1990 Listhaug and Wiberg (1995) compared confidence in six government institutions for the countries in Western Europe. Their analysis includes four Nordic countries, but data for Iceland and Denmark were available only for 1990. At the first time point Norway is clearly number one in trust in government, but Sweden and Iceland (data were collected in 1984) are also in the top half. In 1990 Norway and Iceland are on top (in that order) and Sweden is about in the middle of the rankings. Extending this time series with data from the 1995-1997 World Values Survey, Listhaug (2005) demonstrated that the Nordic countries in the survey Finland, Norway, and Sweden - remain highly ranked among European countries. Again, Norway is on top, with trust in parliament as especially strong. More recently political trust in Norway has declined, and there are indications that the countrys comparative status in trust rankings has suffered as well. Norway is unique among developed countries in having an important oil sector which produces a huge surplus in government budgets. The economic surplus is put into an oil fund that is invested 5

abroad. The contrast between a growing pile of money that cannot be touched, and citizens preferences for spending more to solve problems in Norway, can have lead to frustrations that have fuelled the new distrust. A weakness of the studies cited above is that few systematic explanations are introduced to make sense of comparative patterns. In some cases this might be explained by the fact that we have data from a small number of countries which makes it difficult to test hypotheses about cross-national variations. In this chapter we attempt to improve on previous research by introducing more rigorous measurement of trust differences as well as estimating statistical models that include variables that are relevant to explain comparative differences in political trust. The Model The standard model to explain variations in political trust at the individual include two main categories of independent variables: Political distance and performance evaluations. We expect that an increasing political distance between government and citizens will lead to a decline in trust. Distance is primarily measured as policy distance on the salient issues of the day as developed in the classic article by Miller (1974), but may also include measures of ideological distance or distance by party through the division of voters who vote for winning parties and those who are on the losing side (Miller and Listhaug 1990, 1998, Anderson and Guillory 1997, Anderson et al. 2005). Political distance can sometimes result in a curvilinear pattern as for example when voters on either side of the political spectrum are more distrusting than voters in the political centre. This can be explained by the fact that most governments are either centre-left or centre-right, which can alienate citizens on both sides. Political distance is measured along issues where citizens take different sides or positions. In contrast to this we can have a situation where the electorate agrees on policy positions. In this case policy distance to government becomes irrelevant for political trust. What counts is government performance, how well government is able to fulfil the goals that citizens agree on. Most of the research on performance tests hypotheses about performance of the economy good times breed trust in government, bad times lead to a decline in trust levels (Listhaug 2006). Huseby (2000) has extended the analysis of performance to the environment and social policy (care for the elderly and health policy). These policy areas have relatively high consensus about the goals at least in the Nordic countries. Thus performance considerations become dominant and trust will be affected by evaluations of how good job the government is doing in providing good care for the elderly and the sick. It is likely that factors accounting for variations in trust levels between citizens will also be relevant in explaining variations among countries. In most of the reported research, the Nordic counties are placed on the high end of political trust distributions. By most accounts the policy distances between citizens and government in these polities are small, possibly reflecting an egalitarian social and economic structure and populations that are homogenous along cleavages. Moreover, the Nordic countries have systems of proportional elections which strengthen political representation of all social and political groups, further reducing political divides. 6

The Nordic countries are also relatively rich and their economies have performed well over extensive periods of time. All have welfare states that take care of basic needs based on universalistic principles. At times the Nordic economies have suffered downturns, like in Finland in the 1990s and also Sweden has had problems in keeping up economic growth. Needless to say, the active role of government in solving problems and providing services for citizens tend to increase expectations that are difficult to meet. This is obvious in the current oil case of Norway, but may also have a more general relevance. In the remaining part of this study, we first present the basic multilevel model and discuss the data that we use. In the empirical analysis we attempt to answer two research questions. First, we simply ask where the Nordic countries rank on the various dimensions of political trust. Based on previous research and theoretical arguments, we expect trust in national political institutions to be relatively high when compared with other European countries. For trust in the European Union this expectation will not necessarily be true as the membership issue has been contentious in the Nordic countries. The second research question attempts to sort out explanations for the cross-national variations in trust. We make a distinction between micro- and macro explanatory variables. The set of micro-variables includes measures of policy issues that are relevant for political distance, performance evaluations, and demographical controls. The results of this analysis will tell us how much the placement of the Nordic countries can be explained by compositional effects. In addition, we include two macro variables size of the country populations (natural log of the size of population) and country score on the UN Human development index (HDI). The effects of these variables will tell us if the Nordic countries are distinct on political trust because they are small or because they are rich and highly developed. As an alternative to the detailed macro variables, we will introduce a country classification mainly based on welfare regimes.

Methods
To answer the second research question we employ a multilevel analysis of pooled data from the ESS 2004 covering 24 countries. The multilevel model will briefly be presented below, and a more extensive description of the technique is found in the introductory chapter. The individuals constitute level 1 and the countries constitute level 2. Our basic multilevel model with a random intercept may be expressed in this general equation where the boldfaced letters indicate vectors. Yij = 0 X + Z + uoj eij The dependent variable, Y, has two subscripts, i for individuals and j for countries. 0 is the weighted average regression constant among the countries. X is a vector of individual level explanatory variables. is a vector of their regression coefficients. Z is a vector of country characteristics, or macro-variables and their regression coefficients. Uoj captures the deviation from the weighted average regression constant for country j, i.e. this is the basis for calculating the between-country variation in Y. Finally, eij represents the individual level error term, i.e. the basis for calculating the within-country variation in Y.

The basic assumptions of the multilevel regression model are defined in the introductory chapter. The model restrains the X to have the same, average relationships or effects across all countries. This assumption may be relaxed by allowing the s to vary among the countries and by adding cross-level interactions. Political trust indicators The ESS 2004 includes seven questions on political trust covering both national and international political institutions. The questions were introduced in this way: Using this card, please tell me on a score of 0-10 how much you personally trust each of the institutions I read out. 0 means you do not trust an institution at all, and 10 means you have complete trust. Firstly country's parliament (B4) the legal system (B5) the police (B6) in politicians (B7). in political parties (B8) in the European Parliament (B9) in the United Nations (B10) Our analysis will be based on all questions except the item about the United Nations. The items that we analyse tap trust for the electoral system (B4, B7, B8), trust in the legal system (B5, B6), and trust in the European Parliament (B9). Individual level explanatory variables These include a set of demographic characteristics, measures of political distance, a set of indicators of performance evaluations, and a set of questions on political issues. The first group: age in years, age squared, and years of education are included mainly as controls. Political distance is measured in two ways. The first one is whether or not the respondent at the last parliamentary election voted for a party now in government position. The second indicator is the left-right scale based on question (B23): In politics people sometimes talk of left and right. Using this card, where would you place yourself on this scale, where 0 means the left and 10 means the right?

The first political issue is about immigrants. We formed a scale as the mean of the scores on three questions about negative or beneficial consequences of immigration: Would you say it is generally bad or good for [country]s economy that people come to live here from other countries? And, , would you say that [country]s cultural life is generally undermined or enriched by people coming to live here from other countries? Is [country] made a worse or a better place to live by people coming to live here from other countries? The wordings at the ends of the 0 to 10 scales differ, but 0 means that the consequences are bad and 10 that they are positive. The scale Imm_good ranging from 0 to 10 has excellent psychometric properties: It is one-dimensional with high internal consistency (Cronbachs alpha = 0.84). Next, follows three single questions on different issues. A question from the supplementary self-completion questionnaire is used to make a 0 1-indicator of support for the environment: He/She strongly believes that people should care for nature. Looking after the environment is important to him/her. This question on self description has response categories ranging from 1. Very much like me, to 6. Not like me at all. The two first categories as joined into 1 and the remaining ones are coded 0. We also include a question on income differences: The government should take measures to reduce differences in income levels (B30). The response categories range from 1. Agree strongly, to 5. Disagree strongly. The scoring of the question is reversed in our version so that high values mean support for government action to reduce income differences. The final issue included in our analysis is about European unification: Now thinking about the European Union, some say European unification should go further. Others say it has already gone too far. Using this card, what number on the scale best describes your position?[0. Unifications has already gone too far 10. Unification should go further] We include two categories of performance evaluations: Assessments of personal wellbeing and life satisfaction, and evaluation of how well the country is doing. Life satisfaction is measured by the following question: All things considered, how satisfied are you with your life as a whole nowadays? Please answer using this card, where 0 means extremely dissatisfied and 10 means extremely satisfied. In addition, we include a question on income adequacy (F33): Which of the descriptions on this card comes closest to how you feel about your households income nowadays? 1. Living comfortably on present income. 2. Coping on present income. 3. Finding it difficult on present income. 4. Finding it very difficult on present income. We recode this question into two categories, distinguishing between these who cope or may live comfortably on present income from the other alternatives.

We include three variables tapping the extent to which the respondent is satisfied with the present state of the economy, education, and the health services: On the whole how satisfied are you with the present state of the economy in [country]? Still use this card [0=Extremely bad 10=Extremely good] (B25). Now, using this card, please say what you think overall about the state of education in [country] nowadays? (B28). Still using this card, please say what you think overall about the state of health services in [country] nowadays? (B29). Country level explanatory variables The low number of countries put severe restrictions on the number of country level variables it is meaningful to include. The two main dimensions covered by our two indicators are size of the country, measured by the natural logarithm of population size, and the standard of living measured by the Human Development Index (HDI) published by the United Nations since 1990. We also tried out gross national product per capita (GNP/cap.) and the increase in GNP, but their explanatory power war largely captured by the other two macro-variables. GNP alone was also clearly inferior to the HDI. The macro-variables are frequently strongly correlated. The reason for this is that countries tend to cluster, especially towards the ends of the scales. As an example, the Nordic countries are small, rich, have long democratic traditions, peaceful, etc, which reduces the possibilities for Another way of dealing with the strong correlations among the macro-variables is to replace the macro-variables with a country classification. We use the Ferrera (1996) classification according to welfare regimes, adding an extra category for EastEuropean countries: 1. Bismarckian (Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Switzerland), 2. Nordic (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden), 3. Anglo-Saxon (UK, Ireland), 4. Southern (Spain, Greece, and Portugal), 5. Eastern (Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Ukraine). We use the Eastern Europe as the reference category in our multilevel analysis.

10

Results
In this section we present the results of the empirical analysis. We attempt to answer our two research questions. First, we ask where the Nordic countries are located in the rankings of political institutions, are these counties still on top of the list as previous research has demonstrated? Second, which factors can explain the trust levels? We pursue factors both at country level and at the individual level. Gross country differences in political trust In Table 1 we display the country means on the political trust indicators. The countries are listed from high to low scores on each of the six questions. The Nordic countries are printed in bold arte be easy to identify. We may first note that there are large differences in political trust between the countries as the mean ranges from 6-7 to around 2. The midpoint between no trust and complete trust is 5 (on the 0-10 scale) Furthermore, the trust in the legal system is higher than the trust in the electoral system. Trust in the European Parliament is weaker than for trust in national institutions, and the differences between countries are smaller. The high percentage of Dont know -answers to the EU questions reflects the lower saliency of that institution when compared with national institutions. Table 1 about here It is evident that the political trust in the Nordic countries is high compared to other countries. For trust in national political institutions the Nordic countries are found in the top group for all institutions. Denmark is the clear leader and tops the ranking for four of the five institutions and is number two on the fifth, police, where Finland comes is number one. All five countries are placed in the top third on all rankings, with a minor exception for trust in politicians, where Sweden is number 9 of the 24 nations. Norway, which used to be a leader in political trust, is now in the lower part of the Nordic distribution, giving further support to the thesis that that the big oil fortune that Norway is building in foreign investments leads to frustrated economic expectations that undermine political trust (Listhaug 2005). As excepted we find that trust in the European Parliament shows a quite different distribution. The Nordic countries are now scattered, with a non-member country, Iceland, at third place, Finland is number seven, Denmark is at tenth place, Norway is number fifteen, and Sweden is next to last among the 24 countries. On average the Nordic countries score comparatively much weaker on European trust than on political trust of national political institutions. The similarity in the rankings across the five indicators of trust in national political institutions indicate that the data may be simplified by constructing one or more composite scale based on the five indicators. There are two advantages of scales compared to single indicators: first, the number of dependent variables in our analysis will be smaller. Second, composite measures have large variability and are more reliable than each single indicator. A factor analysis of the five questions on trust in national institutions gave a onedimensional solution in the total sample. However, it is important to validate the measurement model by looking at each country separately. Doing so, a clear picture 11

emerges. Two factors are needed to obtain measurement model with rather similar factor structure across all the countries. These two factors explain more than 78 percent of the variation in the five indicators in all countries. Not surprisingly the first dimension covers trust in the electoral system and the second dimensions captures trust in the legal system. We, therefore, constructed a scale for each of the dimensions as the means of the scores on each of the relevant indicators. Both scales, Telect and Tlegal, have excellent psychometric properties. The scales are one-dimensional and their internal consistency measured by Cronbachs alpha are 0.90 and 0.79 respectively. The mean score for each country on the two scales are graphed in Figure 1. The high correlation between the two political trust dimensions at the country level is clearly visible in that the points for the countries are found along a narrow band from the lower left to the upper right corner. The actual correlation at the country level is 0.90. The scales are also rather strongly correlated at the individual level (r=0.65). The clusters of countries is evident with the Nordic countries plus other smaller rich countries at the top on both dimensions and the four Eastern European countries are found in the lower left corner, scoring low on both trust in the electoral and in the legal system. This brings us to our multilevel analysis which has two purposes. First, we attempt explain the observed differences among the countries and, second, to estimate within-country differences as captured by the individual level explanatory variables in the model. Figure 1 about here A multilevel analysis of political trust Table 2 presents the variables to be used in our analyses. The dependent variables are the three measures of trust for the electoral and the legal system plus the single question on trust in the European Parliament. The next panel in the table presents the demographic controls, followed by our political distance measures: voted for the party in government, and the left-right scale. To capture, non-linear relationships to political trust, the left-right scale is decomposed into six categories with the middle category as the reference category in the multilevel analyses. The remaining individual level explanatory variables are the performance evaluations indicators and the political issue indicators. The last panel of the table describes the two country level explanatory variables, HDI and Lnpop (population size), and the country classification. Table 2 about here The multilevel analyses of the three political trust measures are presented in Table 3 and 4. Table 3 shows the variance components in four models for each of the three dependent variables. Model 0, the null model, has no explanatory variables. Its purpose is to split of the variance in the dependent variables in the within-country component (Se) and the between-country component (Su). These components are also the basis for calculating the intra-class correlation which shows the proportion of the variance in the dependent variable that is attributed to between-country variation. This proportion is 0.20 and 0.23 for trust in the two national institutions, but only 0.04 for trust in the European Parliament.

12

The two variance components in model 0 may also be seen as estimates of the maximum amount of variation at the individual level an at the country level our models can explain. The amount of variance at the two levels explained by each model is also found in Table 3. Model 0, the baseline, explains nothing by definition. Model 1 adds the demographic controls, age, age squared and years of education. These variables explain only trivial amounts of the variance at the individual as well as at the country level. In model 2, the remaining individual level explanatory variables are added. They include measures of political distance, performance evaluations and political issues. These variables explain more than 20 percent of the variation in the three political trust measures. The variables also explain most of the between-country variation. They explain about 69 percent and 63 percent, respectively, of the between-country variation in trust in the electoral system and in the legal system. For trust in the legal system, we observe abnormalities as the explained variance actually turns negative. This may happen in maximum likelihood estimation if the variance component is small at the outset. Finally, the individual level variables explain nothing at all of the between-country variation in the trust in the European Parliament. Table 3 about here In model 3, we introduce the two macro-variables, HDI and Lnpop. They increase the amount of explained between-country variation to 70 percent for the first and to 75 percent for the second national trust measure. The two variables also explain about 30% in the between-country variation in our third trust measure. Model 4 is an alternative to model 3 in that the two macro-variables are replaced by the country classification. For the two trust scales, the country classification does marginally better in terms of explanatory power than the macro-variables in model 3. For trust in the European Parliament, the country classification explains about 39% percent of the between-country variance. Models 3 and 4 perform about equally well, with an advantage to model 4. The individual level variables do, however, have almost identical coefficients in model 24. Therefore, the results for model 3 are the basis for Table 4. The results for the country classification from model 4 are presented as an additional panel at the bottom of the table. Table 4 about here Starting from the top, all three types of political trust show a weak curvilinear relationship to age. The level of trust decreases weakly until people reaches 40 to 50 years for thereafter to weakly increase. Thus, at least for the two dimensions of trust in national institutions, the level of support is highest among older people. Men show slightly lower levels of political trust than women. Trust also increases with years of education completed, but this effect is rather weak. The predicted difference between a person with no education and one with 20 years of education is only about 0.2 points on the trust scales ranging from 0 to 10. The first of the political distance measures is whether one voted for a party in government. In model 3 this variable is represented by two categories: Yes, and Did not vote, and those who voted for parties in opposition constitute the reference category. The results are as expected: those who did not vote show the lowest levels 13

of trust, and those who voted for a party in government show the highest level of trust. The differences are statistical significant but they are rather small. The left-right scale is represented as a categorical variable with six categories, the middle one being the reference category. People identifying with the left have lower trust in the legal system than others, followed by those who answered Dont know. People identifying with the right side of politics show high trust in the electoral system an in the European Parliament, but they do not distinguish themselves in trust for the legal system. Those who answered Dont know show low levels of trust on all three measures. Next follows the issue indicators. Only the immigration issue has any substantial effect on trust. Citizens who evaluate the effects immigrations as positive have higher political trust than those who evaluate the effects of immigrants as negative. As to be expected, the question on the EU-issue is rather strongly and positively related to trust in the European Parliament. We have five performance variables in the model. The two variables capturing the conditions for the respondents show only minor effects on political trust. The three variables tapping the performance of the country, satisfaction with the economy, the education and the health services in the country, all show relatively strong effects. Since they all are measured in the same 0 10-scale, their effects are directly comparable. All signs of the coefficients are positive indicating the high satisfaction with performance is related to all three dimensions of political trust. The satisfaction with the economy of the country shows the strongest effect. The maximum effects of this performance evaluation indicator, is around 2.5 on the scale from 0 to 10 for trust in the electoral system. Its effect on the two remaining trust measures is smaller but still substantial. The effects of evaluation of the education and the health system is smaller, their maximum effects are around one point on the 0 10 trust scales. Finally, the two last panels in Table 4 shows the results for the country-level variables in model 3 and 4. Population size is negatively related to all dimensions of political trust, but the relationships are not statistical significant. The Human Development Index (HDI) is positively related to political trust in the electoral and the legal system. However, only the latter, rather strong relationship, is statistical significant. The strongest relationship is with trust in the European Parliament. This relationship is strongly negative and statistical significant. The country classification in the last panel, give more detailed results on net differences among groups of countries. The reference category for the country classification is the East European countries. With one exception, all other coefficients are positive for trust in the electoral and the legal system. This indicates that, also controlling for all our individual level variables, the East European countries show the lowest political support. The Nordic and the Bismarckian countries score highest on trust in the electoral system. The Anglo-Saxon countries score lowest together with the East European countries. The same ranking is found for trust in the legal system. For trust in the European Parliament the pattern is different. The South and the East European countries show the highest trust in this institution. At the other end, we find 14

the Nordic and the Anglo-Saxon countries with the lowest trust in the European Parliament.

Discussion
The main purpose of this chapter has been to examine country differences in trust in political institutions, especially focusing on the Nordic counties. Previous research as well as the present study has demonstrated that the Nordic countries rank very high in political trust in national institutions, but that their support for European institutions are weaker. We have tried to explain these patterns by analyzing the most recent survey data from ESS by a multilevel statistical model where the individuals constitute level 1 and countries constitute level 2. Initially we found it necessary for both theoretical and statistical reasons to distinguish between three dimensions of political trust: trust in the electoral system, trust in the legal system, and trust in the European Parliament. The two first dimensions were fairly strongly correlated, especially at the country level. The Nordic countries and other small rich countries showed the highest level of trust in the two national political institutions. At the bottom were the East European countries. The pattern was quite different for trust in the European Parliament. On this dimension, the Nordic countries scored lower, and the South European countries, were found the top. Also, the overall country differences were smaller for this dimension than for trust in the two national political institutions. How can we explain these gross country differences? The country differences may be due partly to compositional effects and partly to macro-characteristics of the countries. Our multilevel analysis clearly shows that the demographic controls cannot explain the between-country variation in political trust. The attitudinal explanatory variables, on the other hand, especially the evaluation of performance indicators, do explain the major part of the between-country variation in trust in national political institutions. These variables are, however, unrelated to the variation in trust in the European Parliament among the countries. Adding the country classification in model 4 showed the net differences in political trust between the country categories. After controlling for all individual level variables, the between-country differences are smaller than the gross ones, but basic pattern remains with the Nordic countries highest on trust in national political institutions, and the East European countries at the other end of the scale, showing low levels of trust. Adding the macro-characteristics of countries in model 3 explained most of the remaining between-country differences in all three dimensions of political trust. Especially the Human Development Index is related to all three dimensions of political trust. Countries high on the HDI show high trust in the electoral and the legal system, but they are less inclined than others to trust the European Parliament. These empirical findings show that the high trust levels in the Nordic countries may be explained as a combination of compositional effects and macro characteristics. The compositional effects are caused by the high scores on the indicators of the countrys performance, especially evaluation of the economy, and indicators of political distance. The macro effects are caused by the top positions of the Nordic countries on 15

the Human Development Index, which again reflects the good living conditions in these countries.

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References
Anderson, Christopher J., Andr Blais, Shaun Bowler, Todd Donovan, and Ola Listhaug. 2005. Losers Consent: Elections and Democratic Legitimacy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Anderson, Christopher J. and Christine A. Guillory. 1997. Political Institutions and Satisfaction with Democracy. American Political Science Review 91: 66-81. Dalton, Russell J. 2004. Democratic Challenges, Democratic Choices. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Easton, David.1965. A Systems Analysis of Political Life. New York: John Wiley. Ferrera, Maurizio.1996. The Southern mode of welfare in Europe. Journal of European Social Policy 6(1): 17-37. Huseby, Beate. 2000. Government Performance and Political Support. Dr.polit.dissertation in political science. Trondheim: The Norwegian University of Science and Technology. Klingemann, Hans-Dieter. 1999. Mapping Political Support in the 1990s: A Global Analysis. In Norris, Pippa. (ed.): Critical Citizens. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Klingemann, Hans-Dieter and Dieter Fuchs (eds.).1995: Citizens and the State. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Listhaug, Ola. 2005. Oil Wealth Dissatisfaction and Political Trust in Norway: A Resource Curse? West European Politics 28: 834-851. Listhaug, Ola. 2006. Political Disaffection and Political Performance: Norway 19572001. In Torcal, Mariano and Jose Ramon Montero (eds.): Political Disaffection in Contemporary Democracies. Oxford: Routledge. Listhaug, Ola and Bernt Aardal. 2003. Support of Democracy in Europe. Paper prepared for the conference on Democracy in the New Europe, Institut dtudes Politiques de Paris de Dijon, November 13-16. Listhaug, Ola and Mattti Wiberg. 1995. Confidence in Political and Private Institutions. In Klingemann, Hans- Dieter.and Dieter Fuchs (eds.): Citizens and the State. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Miller, Arthur H. 1974. Political Issues and Trust in Government: 1964-1970. American Political Science Review 68: 951-972. Miller, Arthur H. and Ola Listhaug. 1990. Political Parties and Confidence in Government: A Comparison of Norway, Sweden and the United States. British Journal of Political Science 20: 357-386. Miller, Arthur H. and Ola Listhaug. 1998. Policy Preferences and Political Trust: A Comparison of Norway, Sweden and the United States. Scandinavian Political Studies 21: 161-187. 17

Norris, Pippa (ed.). 1999a. Critical Citizens. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Norris, Pippa. 1999b. Introduction: The Growth of Critical Citizens? In Norris, P. (ed.): Critical Citizens. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Olsen, Johan P. 2002. Reforming European Institutions of Governance. Journal of Common Market Studies 40: 581-602. sterud, yvind. 2005. Introduction: The Peculiarities of Norway. West European Politics 28: 705-720.

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Tables and figures

7.00

Trust in electoral system, country mean

6.00

DK IS

LU
5.00

FI

NL UA

CH

4.00

BE IE ES GR SI FR EE

SE

NO

AT DE

GB

3.00

CZ SK PL

HU

PT
2.00

1.00 3.00 4.00 5.00 6.00 7.00 8.00

Trus t in legal system, country mean

Figure 1. Trust in electoral and legal system, gross country differences.

19

Table 1. Political trust in 2004, country means.

A. Trust in country's parliament Denmark Finland Iceland Luxembourg Switzerland Norway Sweden Spain Ukraine Austria Ireland Greece Belgium Netherlands United Kingdom France Germany Estonia Slovenia Portugal Hungary Czech Republic Slovakia Poland 6.286 6.009 5.924 5.762 5.517 5.424 5.351 5.089 4.797 4.775 4.713 4.687 4.682 4.668 4.288 4.269 4.214 4.191 4.127 3.719 3.634 3.186 3.051 2.405 B. Trust in politicians Denmark Luxembourg Iceland Finland Switzerland Netherlands Norway Belgium Sweden Ireland Ukraine Spain Greece United Kingdom France Estonia Austria Germany Slovenia Czech Republic Hungary Slovakia Portugal Poland D. Trust in the legal system Denmark Finland Norway Switzerland Luxembourg Iceland Austria Sweden Germany Netherlands Greece Ireland United Kingdom Estonia Belgium France Spain Hungary Portugal Ukraine Slovenia Czech Republic Slovakia Poland 5.589 5.178 4.971 4.877 4.770 4.690 4.244 4.240 4.191 3.924 3.736 3.685 3.595 3.589 3.486 3.315 3.254 3.230 3.099 2.727 2.682 2.526 2.058 1.917

C. Trust in political parties Denmark 5.647 Finland 4.996 Luxembourg 4.971 Iceland 4.885 Netherlands 4.800 Switzerland 4.636 Sweden 4.398 Norway 4.340 Belgium 4.286 Ireland 3.973 United Kingdom 3.676 Spain 3.668 Ukraine 3.611 Greece 3.505 France 3.397 Austria 3.396 Slovenia 3.209 Germany 3.184 Estonia 3.088 Czech Republic 2.745 Hungary 2.711 Slovakia 2.663 Portugal 2.085 Poland 1.891

7.214 6.897 6.352 6.140 6.137 6.009 5.829 5.769 5.542 5.496 5.382 5.205 5.116 4.907 4.830 4.766 4.717 4.429 3.939 3.910 3.849 3.720 3.583 3.006

20

E. Trust in the police Finland Denmark Iceland Norway Switzerland Ireland Sweden Germany Luxembourg Austria United Kingdom Greece Netherlands Spain Belgium Estonia France Hungary Portugal Slovenia Poland Slovakia Czech Republic Ukraine

7.956 7.936 7.279 7.131 6.858 6.589 6.486 6.477 6.472 6.185 6.116 6.031 5.967 5.906 5.784 5.692 5.661 5.174 5.056 4.710 4.576 4.352 4.226 3.299

F. Trust in the European Parliament Ireland 5.370 Greece 5.344 Iceland 5.288 Hungary 5.223 Luxembourg 5.223 Spain 5.051 Finland 4.996 Belgium 4.983 Estonia 4.874 Denmark 4.833 Ukraine 4.826 Slovakia 4.738 Switzerland 4.609 Netherlands 4.606 Norway 4.552 Slovenia 4.534 Czech Republic 4.383 France 4.306 Poland 4.261 Germany 4.183 Portugal 4.037 Austria 4.022 Sweden 3.955 United Kingdom 3.548

21

Table 2. Descriptive statistics for the variables to be analysed, minimum n=29455

a

Variables Description Political trust telect Trust in political, electoral system, three items tlegal Trust in legal system and police eptrust Trust in EU parliament Controls age Age in years age2 Age in years squared male Gender, 1=male, 0=female eduyrs Years of full-time education completed Political distance votegov Voted for party in government, 3 categories 1. Voted for party in government 2. Did not vote, don't know 3. Did not vote for party in government lrscale5 Left-right scale in six categories 1 0-2 Left 2 3-4 Left 3 6-7 Right 4 8-10 right 5 88 Don't know 6 5 Middle (reference category) Political issues imm_good Scale, immigration good for country Environment important, 1=important, 0= not so env_imp important Agree government should reduce income incdiff differences European Union: European unification go euftf further or gone too far Performance evaluations: for person and country stflife How satisfied with life as a whole comfinc Living comfortably on present family income How satisfied with present state of economy in stfeco country stfedu State of education in country nowadays stfhlth State of health services in country nowadays Country level variables (n=24) Lnpop Natural logarithm of total population HDI Human development index Ferrera Country classification 1 Bismarckian (AT, BE, CH, DE, FR, LU, NL) 2 Nordic (DK, FI, IS, NO, SE) 3 Anglo-Saxon (IE, GB) 4 Southern (ES, GR, PT) Eastern (CZ, EE, HU, PL, SI, SK, UA) 5 (reference category)
a

Min. 0 0 0 12 144 0 0

Max. 10 10 10 99 9801 1 26

Mean 3.972 5.629 4.503 44.519 2285.981 0.479 12.075

Std. 2.171 2.336 2.392 17.436 1654.714 0.500 3.753

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 12.574 0.780 0 0 0 0 0

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 10 1 5 10 10 1 10 10 10 18.229 0.960 1 1 1 1 1

0.313 0.374 0.313 0.091 0.190 0.187 0.127 0.088 0.317 5.083 0.697 3.761 5.349 7.068 0.771 4.797 5.617 5.260 15.961 0.908

0.464 0.484 0.464 0.288 0.392 0.390 0.333 0.283 0.465 2.063 0.460 1.064 2.648 2.173 0.420 2.382 2.293 2.516 1.450 0.045

Min.: minimum value, Max.; maximum value, Std.: standard deviation. N, the number of individuals varies from 29455 to 31873. Table 3 Variance components from a multilevel regression analysis of political trust in Europe. a
Trust in electoral system Se Model 0 3.670 Model 1 3.631 Model 2 2.706 Model 3 2.706 Model 4 2.706

22

Su Explained Se Explained Su Intraclass correlation -2 Log likelihhod Trust in legal system Se Su Explained Se Explained Su Intraclass correlation -2 Log likelihhod Trust i European Parliament Se Su Explained Se Explained Su Intraclass correlation -2 Log likelihhod
a

0.897 0.000 0.000 0.196 132929.5

0.866 0.011 0.035 132588.3

0.282 0.262 0.686 123138.4

0.265 0.262 0.704 123137.0

0.196 0.262 0.782 123130.1

4.136 1.198 0.000 0.000 0.225 138153.8

4.109 1.157 0.006 0.034 137943.9

3.282 0.444 0.207 0.629 130637.3

3.282 0.302 0.207 0.748 130628.5

3.282 0.207 0.207 0.827 130619.9

5.296 0.235 0.000 0.000 0.042 135063.7

5.181 0.229 0.022 0.022 134404.7

4.124 0.318 0.221 b 0 127582.5

4.124 0.165 0.221 0.296 127567.51

4.124 0.144 0.221 0.385 127564.5

Model 0: Only intercept, Model 1: M0+Demographic variables, Model 2: M1+Attitudinal variables, Model 3: M2+ country variables, Model 4: M2+ country classification. Se: within country variance, Su: between country variance, Explained: proportion of the variance in the null model explained by models 1-4. All variance components are statistical significant at the .01 level. b Due to an increase in the between country variance component this value is set to zero.

23

Table 4. A multilevel analysis of political trust in Europe, fixed regression coefficients from model 3.*
Trust in electoral system B Sig. -0.248 0.929 -0.025 0.000 0.000 0.000 -0.086 0.000 0.009 0.001 0.000 -0.201 0.000 0.178 0.000 0.000 0.000 -0.078 0.027 0.090 0.001 0.161 0.000 0.204 0.000 -0.260 0.000 0.000 0.122 0.000 0.065 0.002 Trust in legal system B Sig. -5.508 0.075 -0.006 0.034 0.000 0.014 -0.104 0.000 0.014 0.000 0.000 -0.156 0.000 0.091 0.001 0.000 0.000 -0.300 0.000 -0.053 0.077 0.042 0.162 0.027 0.430 -0.230 0.000 0.000 0.109 0.000 0.050 0.029 Trust in EU parliament B Sig. 11.105 0.000 -0.053 0.000 0.000 0.000 -0.178 0.000 0.010 0.005 0.000 -0.035 0.264 0.157 0.000 0.000 0.000 -0.033 0.460 0.144 0.000 0.138 0.000 0.200 0.000 -0.330 0.000 0.000 0.121 0.000 0.096 0.000 0.001 0.204 0.016 0.054 0.193 0.126 0.077 -0.068 -8.943 -0.580 -0.969 -0.866 0.085 0.000 29455 0.940 0.000 0.014 0.099 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.292 0.000 0.001 0.013 0.000 0.010 0.752 -

Description Regression constant Age in years Age in years squared Gender, 1=male, 0=female Years of full-time education Voted for government party? Did not vote, don't know Yes No Left-right scale 0-2 Left 3-4 Left 6-7 Right 8-10 right 88 Don't know 5 Middle (reference category) Scale, immigration good for country Environment important Government reduce income Incdiff differences -0.017 0.080 -0.030 0.004 Euftf EU unification go further 0.059 0.000 0.040 0.000 Stflife How satisfied with life as a whole 0.014 0.008 0.095 0.000 Comfinc Living comfortably on family income 0.027 0.288 0.090 0.001 How satisfied with economy in Stfeco country 0.255 0.000 0.180 0.000 Stfedu State of education in country 0.111 0.000 0.131 0.000 Stfhlth State of health services in country 0.115 0.000 0.123 0.000 Lnpop Natural logarithm of total population -0.048 0.552 -0.009 0.916 HDI Human development index 2.214 0.376 8.360 0.004 b Ferrera Country classification 0.071 0.001 1 Bismarckian 0.574 0.030 0.891 0.002 2 Nordic 0.686 0.015 1.301 0.000 3 Anglo-Saxon -0.008 0.983 0.588 0.123 4 Southern 0.409 0.196 0.808 0.018 5 Eastern (reference category) 0.000 0.000 N Number of respondents 31565 31873 a B: regression coefficient in metric scale, Sig.: the probability value of B based on the tstatistic. The probability values of Votegov, Lrscale5 and Ferrera, are based on the Wald statistic for each set of coefficients.
b

Variables Intercept Age age2 Male Eduyrs Votegov 1 2 3 Lrscale5 1 2 3 4 5 6 imm_good env_imp

Coefficients for country classification from model 4.

24