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Political party preference and social trust in four Nordic countries

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Comparative European Politics Aims and scope

Abstract

This article examines how the level of social trust varies between different party supporters in four Nordic countries. We aim to offer new interpretations concerning the associations between party preference and social trust by examining social activity, social status and institutional confidence of political party supporters. Our data are derived from the Danish, Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish sections of the European Social Survey including three recent rounds with over 20,000 observations. We found that the level of trust among the supporters of populist parties is relatively low in each country. Differences between parties may not be explained completely by respondents’ perceived social activity or institutional trust. Our results also suggest that higher societal status does not affect social trust similarly across party groups. In country comparison, we found that the supporters of populist parties are not as isolated in Finland as elsewhere. The article concludes with a discussion on interconnectivity between social trust and cultural homology, which is channelled by citizens’ political preference.

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Notes

  1. The group of populist parties in these four Nordic countries are: The Finns, Progress Party (Norway), Danish People’s Party, Sweden Democrats.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Turku, Turku, Finland

    Aki Koivula, Arttu Saarinen & Pekkä Räsänen

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  1. Aki Koivula
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  2. Arttu Saarinen
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Correspondence to Aki Koivula.

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Koivula, A., Saarinen, A. & Räsänen, P. Political party preference and social trust in four Nordic countries. Comp Eur Polit 15, 1030–1051 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41295-017-0103-0

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