Abstract
Trust in political institutions is one of the key elements which make representative democracies work. Trust creates a connection between citizens and representative political institutions. Democratic governments which enjoy a large degree of trust also tend to have higher degrees of legitimacy and policy efficacy. In Europe's multi-level governance structure, it is imperative to understand the determinants of trust in the institutions of the European Union. With the increasing salience of the European Union, are domestic proxies still a key determinant of evaluating its institutions? Are there differences across the institutions and across the member states? We demonstrate that country-level corruption levels are what drives the relationship between domestic and European institutional trust. The majority of the variation in trust in the institutions of the European Union is, however, driven by individual-level predictors. We also find that individuals across Europe evaluate the institutions of the European Union through a single attitude dimension of political trust rather than through separate evaluations.
Original language | English |
---|---|
Article number | 8 |
Number of pages | 39 |
Journal | European Integration online Papers-EIoP |
Volume | 16 |
Issue number | 2 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 1 Jan 2012 |
Keywords
- ATTITUDES
- COGNITIVE MOBILIZATION
- CORRUPTION
- DEMOCRACY DEFICIT
- EU
- European Central Bank
- European Commission
- European Council
- European Court of Justice
- European Parliament
- IDENTITY
- INTEGRATION
- PERSONALITY
- POLITICAL-BEHAVIOR
- PUBLIC SUPPORT
- Public opinion
- democracy
- institutions
- legitimacy
- multilevel governance
- national parliaments