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What's Trust Got to Do With It? The Effects of In‐Group and Out‐Group Trust on Conventional and Unconventional Political Participation*
Author(s) -
Crepaz Markus M. L.,
Jazayeri Karen Bodnaruk,
Polk Jonathan
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
social science quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.482
H-Index - 90
eISSN - 1540-6237
pISSN - 0038-4941
DOI - 10.1111/ssqu.12271
Subject(s) - duty , politics , social psychology , interpersonal communication , voting , world values survey , psychology , public trust , obligation , political science , law
Objective This article explores whether there is a systematic variation in conventional and unconventional political participation as a function of in‐group versus out‐group trust. We postulate that the narrower the moral community is, the more political participation is restricted to conventional activity that is perceived as an obligation, as a political act to be fulfilled, something akin to citizenship duty. However, individuals with high levels of out‐group trust—trust in people who are different or unknown—are more likely to participate in unconventional political activities that are public in nature and transcend concepts of duty, citizenship, or nation. Methods To obtain measures of in‐group and out‐group trust, we rely on various items in the fifth wave of the World Values Survey. Applying confirmatory factor analysis yields two separate forms of trust, which become our central predictor variables in addition to other, theoretically‐derived independent variables. We employ logistic regression with country cluster robust standard errors. Results and Conclusion The results support our central assertions, even when controlling for the standard measure of generalized trust and a number of other factors. Individuals with higher in‐group trust report having voted at higher levels than individuals with lower in‐group trust. Individuals with higher levels of out‐group trust, however, participate more actively in nonconventional political activity. Surprisingly, the presence of out‐group trust has a slightly negative impact on voting. Our findings further emphasize the importance of differentiating between types of interpersonal trust, and answer recent calls for empirical research on the impact of forms of trust on political behavior.