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Viktor Valgarðsson @viktorv.bsky.social · 19/02/2025

One of my main take-aways from doing this project was the remarkable consistency between different measures from various survey projects in terms of trends and between-country differences. Here's trust in government in WENA. Some differences, sure, but overall... they are all on to something!

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Viktor Valgarðsson @viktorv.bsky.social · 19/02/2025

But trust has also been high in the Nordics (except Iceland!), New Zealand and Switzerland - suggesting that we can look to democratic countries for potential solutions to the trust crisis. Maybe part of the answer is more money! But also equality, vibrant democracy, social cohesion, etc...?

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Viktor Valgarðsson @viktorv.bsky.social · 19/02/2025

Similarly, (reported) trust has been rising in Russia since Putin took power (in 2000) and has been stable or rising in Turkey. The very highest levels of reported trust are in China and Vietnam. High levels of trust in surveys don't tell us the whole story about the state of a country...

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Viktor Valgarðsson @viktorv.bsky.social · 19/02/2025

In Eastern Europe and Central Asia, trust mostly appears to have declined in the 1990s - when many of those countries were newly independent. In Hungary, trust declined dramatically until 2010, when Orbán was re-elected and started dismantling liberal democracy. And then trust started rising!

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Viktor Valgarðsson @viktorv.bsky.social · 19/02/2025

The effects of the 2008 financial crisis are also clear in our data - but mostly in Europe. Esp. in Greece, Cyprus, Spain, and my own native Iceland. Trust also feel sharply in Italy, Portugal and Ireland in 2008, but appears to have (mostly) recovered in those countries... (graph shows parliament)

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Viktor Valgarðsson @viktorv.bsky.social · 19/02/2025

There's also an interesting non-linear trends in many countries in Latin America, where trust in representative institutions was on the rise until about 2014, after which point it started declining sharply. I'd be interested to hear people's take on this, as I'm no expert on politics in the region!

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Viktor Valgarðsson @viktorv.bsky.social · 19/02/2025

Although fairly stable overall, we also saw that trust in the legal / judicial system appears to have declined a bit globally in the 1990s. And we see clear declines in this measure in the Latin America region - especially in Mexico, Venezuela, Chile, El Salvador...

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Viktor Valgarðsson @viktorv.bsky.social · 19/02/2025

One of the findings that most surprised me was that trust in the police had been rising globally by about 12,5 percentage points! But it's worth noting that the US and UK are exceptions here. Our data also ends in 2019, before George Floyd in the US, the Casey Review in the UK, etc...

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Viktor Valgarðsson @viktorv.bsky.social · 19/02/2025

As you may have heard, our main finding is that trust in representative institutions has been declining globally (among democratic countries) but trust in implementing institutions has been stable or rising. But these broad strokes ofc. mask some interesting nuances.

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Viktor Valgarðsson @viktorv.bsky.social · 08/08/2024

Last but not least, we find that the causal effect of authenticity is significantly stronger among respondents with lower levels of generalized political trust (in government, parliament and parties) - suggesting it may be especially important in appealing to low trust citizens.

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Viktor Valgarðsson @viktorv.bsky.social · 08/08/2024

The causal effect of authenticity is strongest in our Western European countries (Germany, France and Spain) but also significant in Argentina, Croatia, Brazil and India (where competence plays a relatively stronger role)... (Note the flag colours in this graph 🤓)

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Viktor Valgarðsson @viktorv.bsky.social · 08/08/2024

We find that the our main measure of authenticity - seeming "in touch with everyday life and ordinary people like yourself" - has a causal effect roughly equal to the effects of the more traditionally discussed attributes of competence and integrity.

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Viktor Valgarðsson @viktorv.bsky.social · 25/06/2024

In sharp contrast, trust in "implementing" institutions has been either stable or rising practically everywhere: in particular, trust in the police has been rising by about 15 percentage points globally (among democracies) since 1990!

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Viktor Valgarðsson @viktorv.bsky.social · 25/06/2024

Trust declines are clearest in Eastern Europe since the 1990s, in Southern Europe after the 2008 crisis, and among several bigger countries in the longer term: the US, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, France, Italy, South Korea and Spain (and probably also Canada and the UK).

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Viktor Valgarðsson @viktorv.bsky.social · 25/06/2024

Looking at countries, trust in parliament has been declining in about 36 democracies, rising in 6, and largely trendless in the rest. Country differences are important! The "risers" are all smaller countries: Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, New Zealand and Ecuador.

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Viktor Valgarðsson @viktorv.bsky.social · 25/06/2024

However, there are important nuances: first, trust in parliaments, governments and parties has been declining overall in Europe and North America, but trends in other regions are less clear. In Latin America, trust was rising until 2010 but has collapsed since then.

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Viktor Valgarðsson @viktorv.bsky.social · 25/06/2024

We* find that trust in "representative" institutions has been declining by ~10 p.p. among democracies since 1990, but trust in "implementing" institutions has been rising! *I, @drjennings.bsky.social, Gerry Stoker, @hannahbunting.bsky.social, @danjdevine.bsky.social, Lawrence McKay & Andrew Klassen

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Viktor Valgarðsson @viktorv.bsky.social · 03/02/2024

Íslenskasta stjórnsýsla í heimi að ráðherra sé bara persónulega í því að setja inn tilkynningar á heimasíðu dómsmálaráðuneytisins... (af mbl.is)

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Viktor Valgarðsson @viktorv.bsky.social · 12/10/2023

Mér finnst þetta síðasta reyndar bara mjög sanngjörn spurning! Ef ég væri að æfa íþrótt veit ég ekki hvað ég ætti að gera með það ef þjálfarinn bæði mig um "meiri gæði"...

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