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Reposted by Viktor Valgarðsson

Lotte Hargrave @lottehargrave.bsky.social · 01/12/2025

🚨New article🚨 What do people want from political leaders in times of crisis, and are those preferences gendered? Interested? Then check out our new Electoral Studies paper @jess-smith.bsky.social @viktorv.bsky.social @danjdevine.bsky.social @hannahbunting.bsky.social @carolineleicht.bsky.social

e.bsky.social

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Reposted by Viktor Valgarðsson

European Journal of Political Research @ejprjournal.bsky.social · 19/08/2025

🌅📙 64.3 #GovernmentTrust These authors (🧵⬇️) use experiments in 🇬🇧🇭🇷🇪🇸🇦🇷 & 🇫🇷 to determine what has the most influence on citizen's trust. They also looked at how different trust-related qualities interact and how people's own traits change the effects. 🔗 buff.ly/H5wjxBl

ow.ly

The causes of perceived government trustworthiness

DANIEL DEVINE, VIKTOR VALGARÐSSON, WILL JENNINGS, GERRY STOKER, HANNAH BUNTING

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Viktor Valgarðsson @viktorv.bsky.social · 25/06/2025

Þetta hefur nú engin áhrif á ákvarðanatöku ríkisstjórnarinnar held ég, þetta er bara stjórnarandstaðan í málþófi að röfla um ekki neitt og meirihlutinn að leyfa þeim það fram á nótt.

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Reposted by Viktor Valgarðsson

Political Studies @polstudies.bsky.social · 19/06/2025

IN NEW ISSUE: What makes a politician trusted by citizens? @viktorv.bsky.social, @drjennings.bsky.social, G Stoker, @lawrencemckay.bsky.social, @danjdevine.bsky.social & @nickclarkegeo.bsky.social find attributes of authenticity are as important as competence & integrity: buff.ly/41DzrXI OPEN ACCESS

buff.ly

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Reposted by Viktor Valgarðsson

Political Studies @polstudies.bsky.social · 05/06/2025

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Reposted by Viktor Valgarðsson

British Journal of Political Science @bjpols.bsky.social · 25/04/2025

From February 2025 - A Crisis of Political Trust? Global Trends in Institutional Trust from 1958 to 2019 - cup.org/4gCcLuT - @viktorv.bsky.social, @drjennings.bsky.social, Gerry Stoker, @hannahbunting.bsky.social, @danjdevine.bsky.social, @lawrencemckay.bsky.social & Andrew Klassen #OpenAccess

BJPolS abstract discussing theoretical fluctuations and empirical studies in political trust, mentioning data collection from 143 countries between 1958 and 2019, and highlighting differences in trust levels at institutions, with a focus on democratic declines.

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Reposted by Viktor Valgarðsson

Tom van der Meer @tomwgvdmeer.bsky.social · 10/04/2025

I am really proud about this publication on trust, with Chaïm la Roi and @cvalebeek.bsky.social . Using unique panel data, we show (1) that trust has a dispositional element among adults, and (2) that these trust attitudes are socialized during adolescence. link.springer.com/article/10.1...

link.springer.com

Socialized to (Dis)trust? A Panel Study into the Origins of Dispositional Institutional Trust - Social Indicators Research

A longstanding argument in the field of institutional trust reads that trust is the outcome of a process of socialization. This approach suggests that institutional trust may be understood as a set di...

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Viktor Valgarðsson @viktorv.bsky.social · 07/03/2025

Að hugsa sér að maður sé bara hluti af þeirri kynslóð sem komst í gegnum það að Vikan með Gísla Marteini var seinna á dagskrá en venjulega vegna afmælistónleika Sinfó

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Reposted by Viktor Valgarðsson

University of Southampton @unisouthampton.bsky.social · 20/02/2025

People's trust in politics is in long-term decline, says our political expert Dr @viktorv.bsky.social. He and his colleague’s latest study shows trust in democratic governments has been falling around the world since the 1990s. Full @uk.theconversation.com article 👇 brnw.ch/21wQPx5

theconversation.com

Trust in politics is in long-term decline around the world – new research

Since 1990, trust in government has been declining in democratic countries across the world.

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

Most of the outliers within countries are surveys that use unusual response scales, and even then, the trends are mostly the same. Dichotomization also produces essentially the same trends as using the full scales... Thanks for reading! Find the full paper and SI here: doi.org/10.1017/S000...

doi.org

A Crisis of Political Trust? Global Trends in Institutional Trust from 1958 to 2019 | British Journal of Political Science | Cambridge Core

A Crisis of Political Trust? Global Trends in Institutional Trust from 1958 to 2019 - Volume 55

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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

There are even more nuggets in our Supplementary Materials (142 pages)! There you can find the cleaner graphs shared above; descriptive trends; results from Stimson's method; MLMs; information on weighting and scales and more (nerd-)fascinating stuff!

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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 · 19/02/2025

Wrote a piece for the @uk.theconversation.com about our study just published in @bjpols.bsky.social: "If it’s something about the way politics is practised that citizens distrust, perhaps those politics need to change." Some more nuggets from our study below! 👇 theconversation.com/trust-in-pol...

theconversation.com

Trust in politics is in long-term decline around the world – new research

Since 1990, trust in government has been declining in democratic countries across the world.

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Reposted by Viktor Valgarðsson

Daniel Devine @danjdevine.bsky.social · 19/02/2025

Nice coverage of our paper in @bjpols.bsky.social led by @viktorv.bsky.social by @unisouthampton.bsky.social media team Paper: www.cambridge.org/core/journal... Coverage: www.southampton.ac.uk/news/2025/02...

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Viktor Valgarðsson @viktorv.bsky.social · 16/02/2025

Yeah when it's linear regression models; they're basically designed to provide predictions of y for any value of x. These are not just multiplications of the coefficients but also the differences between the predicted values in the first and last years derived from those models.

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Reposted by Viktor Valgarðsson

Will Jennings📉🗳️ @drjennings.bsky.social · 12/02/2025

Our article 'A Crisis of Political Trust?' led by @viktorv.bsky.social is now out in @bjpols.bsky.social! We use >3,000 surveys in 143 countries between 1958 and 2019, finding that trust in representative institutions has generally been declining in recent decades. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

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Reposted by Viktor Valgarðsson

Daniel Devine @danjdevine.bsky.social · 12/02/2025

Our paper on global trends in trust is online! Led by @viktorv.bsky.social we use >3k surveys from ~50 projects in 143 countries, the paper provides a framework for understanding changes in trust and: (1) Trust in representative institutions is in decline (2) but stable in implementing institutions

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Reposted by Viktor Valgarðsson

Dan Kaszeta FRHistS @dankaszeta.bsky.social · 06/02/2025

The Papua New Guinea Courier is in rare form.

Screenshot from "Letter from our correspondent" in "Papua New Guinea Courier"

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Reposted by Viktor Valgarðsson

Calum Weir @cwp-weir.bsky.social · 04/02/2025

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Viktor Valgarðsson @viktorv.bsky.social · 31/12/2024

Óháð því hvað okkur finnst um loforðið (mér finnst það galið), þá er alveg rétt hjá Singa og Simma að það er óheiðarlegt að segja fyrir kosningar að eitthvað sé ófrávíkjanlegt skilyrði fyrir stjórnarmyndun og segja svo bara eftir kosningar að það hefði þurft hreinan meirihluta... #kryddsíld

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Reposted by Viktor Valgarðsson

Political Studies @polstudies.bsky.social · 12/12/2024

What makes a politician trusted by citizens? @viktorv.bsky.social , @drjennings.bsky.social, G Stoker, @lawrencemckay.bsky.social, @danjdevine.bsky.social & @nickclarkegeo.bsky.social find attributes of authenticity are as important as competence & integrity: buff.ly/41DzrXI (OPEN ACCESS)

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Reposted by Viktor Valgarðsson

Daniel Devine @danjdevine.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

Are you interested in political trust but think 'actually, it's a bit more complicated than that'? You'd be right! In a draft paper, we use original data from 13 surveys across 11 countries & 52 focus groups w/ 311 participants in 8 countries, arguing that trust, mistrust, & distrust are distinct:

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Reposted by Viktor Valgarðsson

Richard Fletcher @richardfletcher.bsky.social · 23/11/2024

New article in Journal of Communication looking at changes to trust in news across 46 countries in the last 10 years. Trust in news declined in just over half of countries. It decreased more in countries where TV news use has declined, and/or where social media news use has grown. A thread:

academic.oup.com

The link between changing news use and trust: longitudinal analysis of 46 countries

Abstract . Changing levels of public trust in the news are of deep concern to both researchers and practitioners. We use data from 2015 to 2023 in 46 count

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Reposted by Viktor Valgarðsson

Will Jennings📉🗳️ @drjennings.bsky.social · 21/11/2024

What attributes of a government lead citizens to view it as trustworthy? Our article - led by @danjdevine.bsky.social - is out in EJPR today... Competence, benevolence and integrity all matter - but perceived benevolence matters most. ejpr.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

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Reposted by Viktor Valgarðsson

Dr. Silke Goubin @silkegoubin.bsky.social · 21/11/2024

Glad to be at the @emppolitikwiss.bsky.social workshop on political support, where Matthijs Gilissen presented our ongoing work on if citizens make a distinction between political #trust, mistrust and distrust 🧐 @viktorv.bsky.social @stevenvdwalle.bsky.social involve-democracy.eu

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Viktor Valgarðsson @viktorv.bsky.social · 09/11/2024

So is budget polling on the budget like a really cheap survey that asks people about national budgetary policies?

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Viktor Valgarðsson @viktorv.bsky.social · 16/08/2024

The use of the term "populist" is perhaps irresponsible here, at least for a European readership: in the US, economic populism tends to refer to (perhaps simplistic) policies "for people", but "populism" generally refers more to us vs. them rhetoric, demagoguery and nativism (esp. in Europe).

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

Interesting question! We would need survey measures of people's perception of his authenticity (and other traits) for that. My guess would be that he (and Boris) scored high on authenticity at least for a while, but lower on other important traits, and that the latter outweighed it in the end...

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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 · 04/07/2024

"Stay signed in" may be the biggest lie ever told.

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

Previous studies have disagreed whether political trust has been declining or in "trendless fluctuation". Our findings suggest that while trust declines are not linear or universal, they are very real. We need to understand the implications of these declines for our democracy.

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

These graphs are based on the Bayesian dynamic latent trait models developed by @chrisclaassen.bsky.social - we also ran multi-level regression models and Stimson's dyad-ratios algorithm: all show basically the same results. More details in the paper and here: osf.io/kta7p

osf.io

OSF

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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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