Open AccessThe sources of generalized trust and institutional confidence in Europe
Author(s) -
Antti Kouvo
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
research on finnish society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2490-0958
pISSN - 1796-8739
DOI - 10.51815/fjsr.110703
Subject(s) - explanatory power , social capital , european social survey , multilevel model , welfare , survey data collection , explanatory model , positive economics , order (exchange) , capital (architecture) , political science , econometrics , sociology , public economics , economics , geography , social science , statistics , mathematics , law , politics , philosophy , archaeology , epistemology , finance
Besides the exponential growth of written pages on social capital and trust, we have seen a considerable increase in empirical comparative studies on the topic. Despite that, it is not always clear how differences between individual and aggregate level factors are taken into account when exploring the sources of trust. The purpose of the article is to find out a) what the explanatory power of individual and country level factors is when explaining generalized and institutional trust among the Europeans and b) what the most essential differences are in the determinants of social capital between different types of European welfare states. The data come from the European Social Survey (ESS 2004). Multilevel analyses are accomplished in order to combine different levels of data and explanations. The results reveal many similarities but also remarkable differences in the generation of horizontal and vertical trust between different types of welfare states and support hypotheses emphasizing institutional characteristics of the states in the generation of trust.