Department of Political and Social Sciences, European University Institute, Florence, Italy.
PLoS One. 2019 Aug 7;14(8):e0220160. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0220160. eCollection 2019.
Institution-centered accounts of generalized trust rely on the idea that law-breaking and state's unfairness lower individuals' propensity to trust fellow citizens because of a weaker confidence in the state. Despite the theoretical relevance attributed to this mediation mechanism, no empirical analysis in the literature has focused on examining its correlational validity. Using data from the European Social Survey (2010), the Quality of Government EU Regional data, and EUROSTAT, this paper assesses the intervening role of institutional trust on the relationship between crime rates, state's fairness, and generalized trust. Results from a Multilevel SEM (MSEM) mediation analysis indicate that trust in institutions strongly mediates the relationship between violent crimes (i.e. homicide) and generalized trust but not the one between property crimes (i.e. vehicle thefts and robberies) and generalized trust. On the other hand, indicators of fairness (i.e. impartiality and corruption) are all mediated by institutional trust, though impartiality maintains a significant direct effect. Overall, findings support the institutional approach, confirming that the negative relationship between ineffective and unfair institutions and generalized trust passes mostly through people's lost faith in the state.
制度中心论的普遍信任观点依赖于这样一种观点，即违法行为和国家的不公正会降低个人对同胞的信任倾向，因为他们对国家的信心减弱。尽管文献中赋予了这种中介机制理论相关性，但没有实证分析关注其相关性的有效性。本文利用欧洲社会调查（2010 年）、政府质量欧盟区域数据和欧盟统计局的数据，评估了制度信任在犯罪率、国家公平性和普遍信任之间关系中的中介作用。多层次结构方程模型（MSEM）中介分析的结果表明，对机构的信任强烈地中介了暴力犯罪（即凶杀）与普遍信任之间的关系，但不中介财产犯罪（即车辆盗窃和抢劫）与普遍信任之间的关系。另一方面，公平性指标（即不偏不倚和腐败）都通过制度信任来中介，尽管不偏不倚性保持着显著的直接影响。总体而言，研究结果支持制度方法，证实了无效和不公正的制度与普遍信任之间的负相关关系主要是通过人们对国家失去信心而产生的。
