Abstract
The economic crisis that erupted in Europe in 2008 has not only caused economic grievances, but hurt citizens’ trust in their national political system. By now, most research attributes this loss in political trust to governments’ failing economic achievements. This article considers if and to what extent the drop in political trust amidst The Great Recession also was connected to governments’ welfare state effort. Combining individual and country-level data in a comparative multilevel research design, this paper overall finds that in cases of sudden and severe performance setbacks for which accountability is hard to assign, trust in democratic institutions may suffer. However, political trust seems to be especially susceptible to economic performance setbacks in countries with relatively low levels of welfare state effort, suggesting that governments might blunt some of the pain of an economic crisis by providing generous welfare state services to those in need.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Allan, J.P. and Scruggs, L. (2004) Political partisanship and welfare state reform in advanced industrial societies. American Journal of Political Science 48(3): 496–512.
Anderson, C.J., Blais, A., Bowler, S., Donovan, T. and Listhaug, O. (2005) Losers’ Consent: Elections and Democratic Legitimacy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Anderson, C.J. and Guillory, C.A. (1997) Political institutions and satisfaction with democracy: A cross-national analysis of consensus and majoritarian systems. The American Political Science Review 91(1): 66–81.
Anderson, C.J. and Singer, M.M. (2008) The sensitive left and the impervious right: Multilevel models and the politics of inequality, ideology, and legitimacy in Europe. Comparative Political Studies 41(4–5): 564–599.
Armingeon, K. (2012) The politics of fiscal responses to the crisis of 2008–2009. Governance 25(4): 543–565.
Armingeon, K. (2013) Breaking with the past? Why the global financial crisis led to austerity policies but not to modernization of the welfare state. In: C. Pierson, F.G. Castles and I.K. Naumann (eds.) The Welfare State Reade. Oxford: Polity, pp. 214–226
Armingeon, K. and Guthmann, K. (2014) Democracy in crisis? The declining support for national democracy in European countries, 2007–2011. European Journal of Political Research 53(3): 423-442.
Beck, U. (2013) German Europe. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Cameron, D.R. (2012) European fiscal responses to The Great Recession. In: N. Bermeo and J. Pontusson (eds.) Coping with Crisis: Government Reactions to the Great Recession. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, pp. 91–129.
Campbell, A.L. (2012) Policy makes mass politics. Annual Review of Political Science 15(1): 333–351.
Clarke, H.D., Dutt, N. and Kornberg, A. (1993) The political economy of attitudes toward polity and society in Western European democracies. The Journal of Politics 55(04): 998–1021.
Clayton, R. and Pontusson, J. (1998) Welfare-state retrenchment revisited: Entitlement cuts, public sector restructuring, and inegalitarian trends in advanced capitalist societies. World Politics 51(01): 67–98.
Dahlberg, S., Linde, J. and Holmberg, S. (2014) Democratic discontent in old and new democracies: Assessing the importance of democratic input and governmental output. Political Studies 63(S1): 18–37.
Dalton, R.J. (2004) Democratic Challenges, Democratic Choices: The Erosion of Political Support in Advanced Industrial Democracies. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
De Deken, J. and Kittel, B. (2007) Social expenditure under scrutiny: The problems of using aggregate spending data for assessing welfare state dynamics. In: J. Clasen and N.A. Siegel (eds.) Investigating Welfare State Change. The ‘Dependent Variable Problem’ in Comparative Analysis Cheltenham. Northampton: Edward Elgar, pp. 72–105.
de Sousa, L., Magalhães, P.C. and Amaral, L. (2014) Sovereign Debt and governance failures: Portuguese democracy and the financial crisis. American Behavioral Scientist 58(12): 1517–1541.
Döring, H. and Manow, P. (2016) Parliaments and governments database (ParlGov): Information on parties, elections and cabinets in modern democracies. Development version. http://www.parlgov.org/.
Easton, D. (1965) A Systems Analysis of Political Life. New York, NY: Wiley.
Easton, D. (1975) A re-assessment of the concept of political support. British Journal of Political Science 5(4): 435–457.
Ellinas, A.A. and Lamprianou, I. (2014) Political trust in extremis. Comparative Politics 46(2): 231–250.
Farrell, D.M. (2011) Electoral Systems: A Comparative Introduction. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Finkel, S.E., Muller, E.N. and Seligson, M.A. (1989). Economic crisis, incumbent performance and regime support: A comparison of longitudinal data from West Germany and Costa Rica. British Journal of Political Science 19(03): 329–351.
Friedrichsen, J. and Zahn, P. (2014). Political support in hard times: Do people care about national welfare? European Journal of Political Economy 35: 23–37.
Gallie, D. (Ed.) (2013) Economic Crisis, Quality of Work, and Social Integration: The European Experience. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hemerijck, A. (2012) Changing Welfare States. Oxford: OUP Oxford.
Hemerijck, A.C., Vandenbroucke, F., Andersen, T.M., Pochet, P., Degryse, C. and Basso, G. et al (2012) The welfare state after the Great Recession. Intereconomics 47(4): 200–229.
Hobolt, S., Tilley, J. and Banducci, S. (2013) Clarity of responsibility: How government cohesion conditions performance voting. European Journal of Political Research 52(2): 164–187.
Hooghe, M. (2011). Why there is basically only one form of political trust. The British Journal of Politics and International Relations 13(2): 269–275.
Huseby, B.M. (2000) Government Performance and Political Support: A Study of How Evaluations of Economic Performance, Social Policy and Environmental Protection Influence the Popular Assessments of the Political System. Trondheim: Institutt for sosiologi og statsvitenskap, Norges teknisk-naturvitenskapelige universitet.
Inglehart, R. and Klingemann, H.-D. (1976) Party identification, ideological preference and the left-right dimension among Western mass publics. In: I. Budge, I. Crewe and D. Farlie (eds.) Party Identification and Beyond: Representations of Voting and Party Competition. New York: Wiley, pp. 243–273.
Kuitto, K. (2011) More than just money: Patterns of disaggregated welfare expenditure in the enlarged Europe. Journal of European Social Policy 21(4): 348–364.
Kumlin, P.S. (2011) Dissatisfied democrats, policy feedback, and European Welfare States, 1976–2001. In: S. Zmerli and M. Hooghe (eds.) Political Trust: Why Context Matters. Oxford: ECPR Press, pp. 163–186.
Kumlin, P.S. (2014) Policy feedback in political context: Unemployment benefits, election campaigns, and democratic satisfaction. In: P.S. Kumlin and I. Stadelmann-Steffen (eds.) How Welfare States Shape the Democratic Public: Policy Feedback, Participation, Voting, and Political Attitudes. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, pp. 181–197.
Kumlin, S. (2004) The Personal and the Political: How Personal Welfare State Experiences Affect Political Trust and Ideology. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Kumlin, S. and Haugsgjerd, A. (2017) The welfare state and political trust: Bringing performance back in. In: S. Zmerli and T. Van der Meer (eds.) Handbook on Political Trust. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing.
Lawrence, R.Z. (1997) Is it really the economy, stupid? In: J.S. Nye, P D. Zelikow and D.C. King (eds.) Why People Don’t Trust Government. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, pp. 111–132.
Lesschaeve, C. (2016) The predictive power of the left-right self-placement scale for the policy positions of voters and parties. West European Politics: 1–21. doi:10.1080/01402382.2016.1229088.
Lewis-Beck, M. and Stegmaier, M. (2013) The VP-function revisited: A survey of the literature on vote and popularity functions after over 40 years. Public Choice 157(3–4): 367–385.
Lewis-Beck, M.S. and Stegmaier, M. (2007) Economic models of voting. In: R.J. Dalton and H.-D. Klingemann (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Political Behaviour. Oxford University Press, pp. 518–537.
Lijphart, A. (1999) Patterns of Democracy: Government Forms and Performance in Thirty-Six Countries. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Lipset, S.M. (1959) Some social requisites of democracy: Economic development and political legitimacy. American Political Science Review 53: 69–105.
Lo, A.W. (2012) Reading about the financial crisis: A twenty-one-book review. Journal of Economic Literature 50(1): 151–178.
Lühiste, K. (2014) social protection and satisfaction with democracy: A multi-level analysis. Political Studies 62(4): 784–803.
Magalhães, P.C. (2014) Government effectiveness and support for democracy. European Journal of Political Research 53(1): 77–97.
Mazower, M. (1999) Dark Continent: Europe’s Twentieth Century. London: Penguin.
McAllister, I. (1999) The economic performance of governments. In: P. Norris (ed.) Critical Citizens. Global Support for Democratic GovernmentNew York: Oxford University Press, pp. 188–203.
Newton, K. (2006) Political support: Social capital, civil society and political and economic performance. Political Studies 54(4): 846–864.
Newton, K. (2007) Social and political trust. In: J.D. Russell and H.-D. Klingemann (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Political Behaviour. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 341–361.
Norris, P. (ed.) (1999) Critical Citizens. Global Support for Democratic Government. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Norris, P. (2011) Democratic Deficit: Critical Citizens Revisited. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Polavieja, J. (2013) Economic crisis, political legitimacy and social cohesion. In: D. Gallie (ed.) Economic Crisis Quality of Work and Social Integration: The European Experience. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 256–278.
Powell, G.B. and Whitten, G.D. (1993) A cross-national analysis of economic voting: Taking account of the political context. American Journal of Political Science 37(2): 391–414.
Roth, F., Nowak-Lehmann, F. and Otter, T. (2013) Crisis and Trust in National and European Union Institutions—Panel Evidence for the EU, 1999 to 2012, EUDO/RSCAS Working Paper Series 2013–31. Florence: European University Institute.
Rothstein, B. and Stolle, D. (2008) The state and social capital: An institutional theory of generalized trust. Comparative Politics 40(4): 441–459.
Schäfer, A. and Streeck, W. (2013) Politics in the Age of Austerity. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Schuman, H. and Presser, S. (1996) Questions and Answers in Attitude Surveys: Experiments on Question Form, Wording, and Context. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Scruggs, L. (2007) Welfare state generosity across space and time. In: J. Clasen and N.A. Siegel (eds.) Investigating Welfare State Change. The ‘Dependent Variable Problem’ in Comparative Analysis. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, pp. 133–165.
Scruggs, L., Jahn, D. and Kuitto, K. (2014) Comparative Welfare Entitlements Dataset 2. Version 2014–03. Greifswald: University of Connecticut, University of Greifswald.
Siegel, N.A. (2007) When (only) money matters: The pros and cons of expenditure analysis. In: J. Clasen and N.A. Siegel (eds.) Investigating Welfare State Change. The ‘Dependent Variable Problem’ in Comparative Analysis. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, pp. 43–71.
Steenbergen, M.R. and Jones, B.S. (2002) Modeling multilevel data structures. American Journal of Political Science 46(1): 218–237.
Stevenson, B. and Wolfers, J. (2011) Trust in public institutions over the business cycle. American Economic Review 101(3): 281–287.
Stevenson, R.T. and Duch, R. (2013) The meaning and use of subjective perceptions in studies of economic voting. Electoral Studies 32(2): 305–320.
Tåhlin, M. (2013) Economic crisis and employment change: The great regression. In: D. Gallie (ed.) Economic Crisis, Quality of Work, and Social Integration The European Experience. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 30–57.
Taylor, M.A. (2000) Channeling frustrations: Institutions, economic fluctuations, and political behavior. European Journal of Political Research 38(1): 95–134.
Thomassen, J. and Kolk, H.V.D. (2009) Effectiveness and political support in old and new democracies. In: H.-D. Klingemann (ed.) The Comparative Study of Electoral Systems. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 333–346.
Van der Eijk, C. and Rose, J. (2015) Risky business: Factor analysis of survey data—Assessing the probability of incorrect dimensionalisation. PLoS ONE 10(3): e0118900.
Van Erkel, P.F.A. and Van Der Meer, T.W.G. (2015) Macroeconomic performance, political trust and the Great Recession: A multilevel analysis of the effects of within-country fluctuations in macroeconomic performance on political trust in 15 EU countries, 1999–2011. European Journal of Political Research 55(1), 177–197.
van Kersbergen, K., Vis, B. and Hemerijck, A. (2014) The Great Recession and welfare state reform: Is retrenchment really the only game left in town? Social Policy and Administration 48(7): 883–904.
Whitten, GD. and Palmer, H.D. (1999) Cross-national analyses of economic voting. Electoral Studies 18(1): 49–67.
Wilensky, H. L. (1975) The Welfare State and Equality: Structural and Ideological Roots of Public Expenditure. Berkley: University of California Press.
Acknowledgements
For comments and suggestions, I thank participants at seminars at Institute for Social Research, Oslo, and Leuven-Montreal Winter School on Elections and Voting Behaviour 2015. In addition, I am grateful for comments from Rune Karlsen, Staffan Kumlin, Ann-Kristin Kölln, Bernt Aardal and two anonymous reviewers to various versions of this article.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Appendix
Appendix
Checking for influential countries.
Model 1: country fixed effects | Model 2: partisanship control | Model 3: time lag on welfare effort | Model 4: CWED 2 measure (1) | Model 5: CWED 2 measure (2) | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Fixed effects | ||||||||||
Intercept | 3.768** | (0.046) | 4.027** | (0.517) | 3.441** | (0.503) | 4.380** | (0.221) | 4.383** | (0.209) |
Crisis: impact on national economy | −0.209** | (0.023) | −0.193** | (0.048) | −0.194** | (0.047) | −0.242** | (0.055) | −0.242** | (0.055) |
Crisis: impact on personal situation | −0.174** | (0.018) | −0.165** | (0.025) | −0.174** | (0.022) | −0.147** | (0.030) | −0.148** | (0.032) |
Household income: make ends meet | 0.286** | (0.012) | 0.270** | (0.020) | 0.286** | (0.018) | 0.243** | (0.021) | 0.244** | (0.021) |
Education (ref: basic education) | ||||||||||
Secondary education | 0.050 | (0.040) | 0.073 | (0.083) | 0.040 | (0.076) | 0.160 | (0.098) | 0.160 | (0.098) |
Higher education | 0.311** | (0.041) | 0.361** | (0.094) | 0.300** | (0.090) | 0.470** | (0.115) | 0.471** | (0.115) |
Age | 0.006* | (0.001) | 0.008** | (0.001) | 0.007** | (0.002) | 0.008** | (0.002) | 0.008** | (0.002) |
Male | −0.002 | (0.027) | 0.027 | (0.039) | −0.003 | (0.041) | 0.074 | (0.049) | 0.073 | (0.049) |
Government distance | −0.210** | (0.030) | −0.234** | (0.044) | −0.233** | (0.044) | ||||
Employment status (ref: manual worker) | ||||||||||
Self-employed | 0.223** | (0.058) | 0.209** | (0.079) | 0.241** | (0.079) | 0.179+ | (0.092) | 0.178+ | (0.092) |
Managers | 0.425** | (0.053) | 0.427** | (0.076) | 0.469** | (0.079) | 0.435** | (0.106) | 0.433** | (0.105) |
Other white collars | 0.226** | (0.050) | 0.260** | (0.068) | 0.264** | (0.068) | 0.334** | (0.081) | 0.333** | (0.081) |
House person | 0.148* | (0.059) | 0.141+ | (0.076) | 0.148** | (0.057) | 0.098 | (0.082) | 0.097 | (0.082) |
Unemployed | −0.077 | (0.055) | −0.091 | (0.070) | −0.078 | (0.061) | −0.054 | (0.097) | −0.056 | (0.097) |
Retired | 0.130** | (0.050) | 0.117+ | (0.067) | 0.128* | (0.063) | 0.116 | (0.072) | 0.117 | (0.073) |
Students | 0.603** | (0.061) | 0.566** | (0.085) | 0.607** | (0.086) | 0.493** | (0.113) | 0.493** | (0.113) |
Clarity of responsibility | −0.464 | (0.685) | −0.425 | (0.667) | ||||||
Age of democracy | 0.013 | (0.010) | 0.015 | (0.009) | ||||||
Welfare effort | 0.002 | (0.004) | ||||||||
Welfare effort (2009) | 0.004 | (0.004) | ||||||||
Total generosity index CWED 2 | 0.020 | (0.023) | ||||||||
Unemployment generosity index CWED 2 | −0.062 | (0.061) | ||||||||
Welfare effort * Crisis: per. sit. | 0.001+ | (0.001) | ||||||||
Welfare effort (2009) * Crisis: per. sit. | 0.001* | (0.000) | ||||||||
Total gen. CWED 2 * Crisis: per. sit. | 0.015* | (0.006) | ||||||||
Unemployment gen. CWED 2 * Crisis: per. sit. | 0.031** | (0.012) | ||||||||
Random effects | ||||||||||
Individual variance | 4.061** | (0.124) | 4.128** | (0.130) | 3.943** | (0.147) | 3.943** | (0.147) | ||
Country variance | 0.449** | (0.090) | 0.436** | (0.082) | 0.401** | (0.138) | 0.381** | (0.112) | ||
Slope variance: Crisis: per. sit. | 0.003** | (0.003) | 0.003** | (0.002) | 0.001** | (0.003) | 0.001** | (0.002) | ||
Slope variance: Crisis: nat. eco. | 0.035** | (0.012) | 0.037** | (0.012) | 0.020** | (0.011) | 0.020** | (0.011) | ||
−2LogLikelihood | −41,345.084 | −52,318.918 | −24,994.21 | −24,993.908 | ||||||
N | 24,589 | 19,578 | 24,589 | 11,923 | 11,923 | |||||
Model 6: alternative channel (1) | Model 7: alternative channel (2) | Model 8: alternative channel (3) | Model 9: alternative channel (4) | Model 10: no weights | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Fixed effects | ||||||||||
Intercept | 3.456** | (0.512) | 3.448** | (0.510) | 3.442** | (0.511) | 3.449** | (0.510) | 3.456** | (0.486) |
Crisis: impact on national economy | −0.194** | (0.048) | −0.158+ | (0.090) | −0.196** | (0.047) | −0.139 | (0.130) | −0.199** | (0.045) |
Crisis: impact on personal situation | −0.215** | (0.039) | −0.174** | (0.023) | −0.089 | (0.057) | −0.174** | (0.023) | −0.179** | (0.021) |
Household income: make ends meet | 0.286** | (0.018) | 0.286** | (0.018) | 0.286** | (0.018) | 0.286** | (0.018) | 0.284** | (0.012) |
Education (ref: basic education | ||||||||||
Secondary education | 0.040 | (0.076) | 0.040 | (0.077) | 0.040 | (0.077) | 0.040 | (0.077) | 0.055 | (0.040) |
Higher education | 0.300** | (0.090) | 0.301** | (0.090) | 0.301** | (0.090) | 0.301** | (0.090) | 0.311** | (0.041) |
Age | 0.007** | (0.002) | 0.007** | (0.002) | 0.007** | (0.002) | 0.007** | (0.002) | 0.007** | (0.001) |
Male | −0.003 | (0.041) | −0.003 | (0.041) | −0.003 | (0.041) | −0.003 | (0.041) | −0.003 | (0.027) |
Employment status (ref: manual worker) | ||||||||||
Self-employed | 0.241** | (0.079) | 0.242** | (0.079) | 0.241** | (0.079) | 0.242** | (0.079) | 0.221** | (0.058) |
Managers | 0.469** | (0.079) | 0.468** | (0.079) | 0.468** | (0.079) | 0.469** | (0.079) | 0.424** | (0.053) |
Other white collars | 0.264** | (0.068) | 0.264** | (0.068) | 0.264** | (0.068) | 0.264** | (0.068) | 0.227** | (0.050) |
House person | 0.146* | (0.057) | 0.146* | (0.057) | 0.146* | (0.057) | 0.146* | (0.057) | 0.150* | (0.059) |
Unemployed | −0.080 | (0.061) | −0.081 | (0.061) | −0.081 | (0.061) | −0.081 | (0.061) | −0.074 | (0.055) |
Retired | 0.128* | (0.063) | 0.128* | (0.063) | 0.128* | (0.063) | 0.128* | (0.063) | 0.133** | (0.050) |
Students | 0.606** | (0.086) | 0.607** | (0.086) | 0.607** | (0.086) | 0.607** | (0.086) | 0.605** | (0.061) |
Clarity of responsibility | −0.415 | (0.664) | −0.411 | (0.662) | −0.407 | (0.663) | −0.410 | (0.662) | −0.403 | (0.638) |
Age of democracy | 0.014 | (0.009) | 0.014 | (0.009) | 0.014 | (0.009) | 0.014 | (0.009) | 0.014 | (0.010) |
Welfare effort | 0.004 | (0.004) | 0.004 | (0.004) | 0.004 | (0.004) | 0.004 | (0.004) | 0.004 | (0.005) |
Age of democracy * Crisis: per. sit. | 0.001 | (0.001) | ||||||||
Age of democracy * Crisis: nat. eco. | −0.001 | (0.002) | ||||||||
Clarity of resp. * Crisis: per. sit. | −0.145 | (0.096) | ||||||||
Clarity of resp. * Crisis: nat. eco. | −0.097 | (0.209) | ||||||||
Welfare effort * Crisis: per. sit. | 0.001* | (0.000) | ||||||||
Random effects | ||||||||||
Individual variance | 4.128** | (0.130) | 4.128** | (0.130) | 4.128** | (0.130) | 4.128** | (0.130) | 4.163** | (0.038) |
Country variance | 0.434** | (0.083) | 0.432** | (0.083) | 0.432** | (0.082) | 0.432** | (0.083) | 0.451** | (0.124) |
Slope variance: Crisis: per. sit | 0.005** | (0.003) | 0.005** | (0.003) | 0.005** | (0.003) | 0.005** | (0.003) | 0.003** | (0.003) |
Slope variance: Crisis: nat. eco. | 0.039** | (0.013) | 0.038** | (0.014) | 0.038** | (0.013) | 0.038** | (0.013) | 0.039** | (0.015) |
−2LogLikelihood | −52,320.681 | −52,321.033 | −52,320.066 | −52,321 | −52,508.721 | |||||
N | 24,589 | 24,589 | 24,589 | 24,589 | 24,589 | |||||
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Haugsgjerd, A. Political distrust amidst The Great Recession: The mitigating effect of welfare state effort. Comp Eur Polit 16, 620–648 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41295-017-0089-7
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41295-017-0089-7