Ruelens Anna, Meuleman Bart, Nicaise Ides
Research Institute for Work and Society, University of Leuven, Belgium.
Centre for Sociological Research, University of Leuven, Belgium.
Soc Sci Res. 2018 Sep;75:142-153. doi: 10.1016/j.ssresearch.2018.05.004. Epub 2018 May 17.
The extensive literature on political trust has long suggested a link between macroeconomic conditions and public trust in political institutions. However, empirical evidence regarding this relationship remains ambiguous. Conflicting results appear to be related to differences in research design: while cross-sectional studies tend not to find evidence of a link between macroeconomic variables and trust in political institutions, most longitudinal studies do. In this paper, using recent advances in multilevel methodology, we examine both cross-sectional and longitudinal effects of macroeconomic variables on trust in national parliament within a single dynamic multilevel framework. By analyzing all seven waves of the European Social Survey (2002-2014), we demonstrate that declining macroeconomic performance has a negative within-country effect on trust in national parliament. At the same time, we find limited evidence in support of this association at the between-country level. This discrepancy suggests the presence of confounding factors that are unaccounted for in cross-sectional designs. We therefore argue for the importance of examining within-country effects as they provide a more stringent test of causality.
长期以来，关于政治信任的大量文献表明宏观经济状况与公众对政治机构的信任之间存在联系。然而，关于这种关系的实证证据仍然不明确。相互矛盾的结果似乎与研究设计的差异有关：虽然横断面研究往往找不到宏观经济变量与对政治机构信任之间存在联系的证据，但大多数纵向研究却能找到。在本文中，我们利用多层次方法的最新进展，在一个单一的动态多层次框架内研究宏观经济变量对国民议会信任的横断面和纵向影响。通过分析欧洲社会调查（2002 - 2014年）的所有七轮数据，我们证明宏观经济表现的下降在国内对国民议会信任有负面影响。同时，我们发现在国家间层面支持这种关联的证据有限。这种差异表明存在横断面设计中未考虑到的混杂因素。因此，我们认为研究国内影响很重要，因为它们能对因果关系进行更严格的检验。
