University of Cologne
Faculty of Management, Economics and Social Sciences
Seminar for Sociology
Research seminar: Trust and Morality in Old and New Market Economies
Prof. Dr. Heiner Meulemann,
Dr. Tilo Beckers
Terms: Summer 2008- Winter 2008/2009
Perceived efficiency of the legal system and trust in political institutions in Eastern and Middle Europe
Izabela Korbiel
Social Sciences (Diploma)
Matrikel-Nr.: 4351827
Kurze Str.17
50858 Köln
Sven Bremenfeld
Geography (Diploma)
Matrikel-Nr.: 3854418
Laubacher Str.9
40822 Mettmann
Alexander Opitz
Economics and Social Sciences
Matrikel-Nr.: 4462947
Melatengürtel 71
50825 Köln
Table of Contents
Abstract 4
1. Research question 5
1.1. Introduction 5
1.2. Theory and concepts 5
1.2.1. Trust 5
1.2.2. Trust and social capital 6
1.3. Proceeding 8
2. Hypotheses 9
2.1. Independent variable hypotheses 9
2.1.1. Perceived crime rate 9
2.1.2. Status 12
2.1.3. Social capital 12
2.2. Context level hypotheses 13
2.2.1. Corruption 13
2.2.2. Murder rate 14
2.2.3. Standard of living/economic condition 15
2.2.4. Democracy level 16
3. Measurement and distribution 17
3.1. Dataset 17
3.2. Dependent variables 17
3.3. Independent concepts 21
3.4. Context factors 22
4. Results 29
4.1. Regression analysis 29
4.2. Multi-level analysis 31
4.2.1. Variances and goodness of fit 31
4.2.2. Effects on political trust 33
5. Conclusion 35
Appendix 37
References: 40
List of figures:
3
Figure 1: Overview of hypotheses\ Path diagram 10
Figure 2: Distribution of trust in Europe 19
Figure 3: Mean level of political trust in Europe 21
Figure 4 Values for Corruption index 26
Figure 5 Values for Democracy index 27
Figure 6 Height of GDP 27
Figure 7 Height of Murder rate 28
Figure 8: Random slope effects gender 37
Figure 9: Random slope effects education level 38
List of tables:
Table 1: Correlation matrix of the different forms of political trust 18
Table 2: Correlation matrix of country level variables 25
Table 3: Factor Analysis for context factor variables 25
Table 4: Regression of politic trust on individual level variables 29
Table 5: Variances on the two levels 32
Table 6: Effects of context factor variables 34
(Number of countries N= 24) on political trust (0-10) 34
Table 7: Legend of country’s shortcuts: 38
Key Words: political trust, crime rate, efficiency of legal system, corruption
Abstract
This paper tries to reveal the reasons of political trust. It is based on the 3rd wave of the European-Social-Survey (ESS). We assume that trust in political institutions is mainly influenced by the people’s status (income and education), the social capital (social network and participation) and furthermore the perceived crime rate (fear of burglaries and fear of violent crime). The political institutions that are discussed are the police, the legal system and the parliament. Perceived crime rate and household’s income arises as the most influential predictor from a regression analysis, admittedly with few explanatory power. Much variance of political trust between countries (Eta = 0,506) leaves enough space for country differences as significant predictors. Moreover, indeed, a multilevel analysis of several context factors displays corruption as a highly influential causal variable of political trust.
1. Research question
1.1. Introduction
Focussing on the “new” members of the European community of nations, the realisation of democracy seems to be essential for the solution of future and present economic and societal challenges, not least for the democratic model of society itself. The last two decades since the decline of communism in many eastern and middle European countries were not categorically characterized by stability of governments or political systems. Riots in the Ukraine, war on the Balkan and dictatorial aspects in Belarus are just prominent examples of unfavourable public development. However, there are as good examples – Poland or Czech Republic - of successful development of democratic political system. To achieve this goal for entire Europe, it is obviously worth knowing for national administrations as well as for supranational institutions such as the EU to come to know some concepts of how people can gain trust in their political system and what is responsible for failure on the one and success stories on the other hand. It can be assumed that the condition of the legal system is of much importance, as an efficient one can avoid crime. Furthermore, a functioning political and economical system should be an influential factor for people’s trust in it.
The results of this research are expected to be primarily significant for eastern European countries; a lack of political trust can be noticed there. Nevertheless, it could also lead to some general statements for other regions, where problems in state or nation building are constraining political development.
1.2. Theory and concepts
1.2.1. Trust
There are different forms of trust. The trust in an old friend or a family member is mostly higher than in a person that you have just met on the street the first time in your life. Obviously the frequency of social contact is important for trusting a person. Another important factor should be the experiences that people have made. So the socialisation process could be important for the development of social trust. If you grow up in a family with a high frequency of social interaction and you have made good experiences in trusting people, then also the trust in other persons, non family members may be higher; in other words good or bad experiences with other people are one big factor of personal trust. But trust always involves personal risk because of certain reasons. (Newton 1999: 171)
Furthermore, we should separate between trust into a person and trust in a system. Most of the citizens in a country have different levels of personal trust depending on social contacts and experience. But trust in a system is more complex; there is not just trust into one single person, but in many, as the society contains many people. Regarding our title, for example trust in the legal system could mean that people trust in the police to enforce the law, so it is not just one police officer, but rather a high number of them. Also in this case experiences are an influent factor: Examples are emergency situations, in which people need help from the police or, on the other hand negative experiences.
All of our arguments are based on the postulation, that positive experience with an institution leads to positive connotations and, in the end, generates trust in it and the other way around respectively. When we trust the police there is still personal contact because citizens can meet police officers on the street everyday. But for creating political trust second-hand sources are needed to give citizens information about politicians and their decisions. Therefore mass media have a huge influence upon trust in politicians and government. Beside political trust also the trust into a democracy system belongs to public political sphere (Newton 1999: 179). Among other variables age, education and income are often related to variations in social and political trust, but these relationships differ between different countries (Newton 1999: 180, Levi/Stoker 2000: 481).
1.2.2. Trust and social capital
Social capital is discussed in many fields of social sciences research; it is evident on the micro level as well as on the macro level. Paxton distinguishes even between three levels of social capital: national/community level (similar to Putnam’s perspective), the individual level and the within-group level. She picks up two components of social capital: trust and associations. Trust is defined as positive, reciprocal ties between individuals whereas associations mean objective ties between individuals (Paxton 1999: 98-99). She also formulated some kind of consensus between levels: “While trust in specific others may be important at more micro levels of social capital, generalized trust is the important feature of national-level social capital.” (Paxton 1999: 99)
To begin with the first one, Coleman defines social capital by its function and argues that it is composed of structure of relation between actors and among actors. (Coleman 1988: 98) Moreover, social capital means trust, information, norms and effective sanctions. It is productive because actors generate new resources through interaction and these new resources can be used to achieve the actor’s interests and increase individual outcomes.
In the literature of macro level related social capital, like in the articles of Robert Putnam, social trust is one of three core elements, next to social networks and civic norms (Putnam 2000). Moreover, as Neller (2008) has noticed, “(…) the degree of satisfaction with personal factors (…) and trust in political institutions are overall the most important factors to explain individual levels of social trust” (Neller 2008: 13). It draws the link between social trust in general and trust in politics. She also explains the difference between social trust and trust in politicians (or political institutions) which lies in the horizontal characteristic of general trust in other people in opposition to vertical trust in political institutions. (Neller 2008: 1) Also Newton sees a close connection between trust and social capital. (Newton 1999: 169)
Numerous researches have already tried to find out the connection between social and political trust, many of them are based on the ESS data and allow drawing comparisons between European countries. Some of the results are summarised in Heller’s article, e.g. a very interesting point that describes that trust in institutions which are present in everyday political life is more important for explaining social trust than trust in more abstract institutions like the law system (cf. Neller 2008: 14) According to the point that the age of democracy has an impact on social and political trust, varying levels of trust within Europe are very plausible. “Post-communist societies are characterised by a syndrome of distrust, affecting personal relationships amongst citizens and relationships between citizens and political elites as well.” (cf. Neller 2008: 18) The level of trust obviously is higher in Western European countries, which have not been under communistic rule.
Furthermore, Gabriel and Rogg (2008) observed that identification with a political party builds an important bridge between citizens and the political system: “Political trust dependents on an interaction of people’s partisan affiliation and the inclusion of the preferred party in the incumbent government”. (Gabriel/Rogg 2008: .7) In other words, in case of a strong party identification people show higher levels of political trust. The author presents also the classification of political trust into exchange-based trust namely “expectations of favourable political outcomes” (Gabriel/Rogg 2008: 14) and communal-based trust “as a by-product of people’s shared identities” (Gabriel/Rogg 2008: 14). All things considered, consistent with the social capital theory, there is social trust, the internalisation of cultural norms, and social activity in informal networks which found trust in politics (cf. Gabriel/Rogg 2008: 14).
1.3. Proceeding
The subject of this research project is trust in political institutions such as the police, the legal system or the parliament.
After formulating the hypotheses for the tested variables, several descriptive results and measurement aspects are presented in order to give a good overview of the country differences. This is followed by a regression analysis of ESS-variables performed in SPSS, which will provide causal effects of individual conditions. Finally, there will be a multilevel analysis also including context factors such as the GDP using the statistical software HLM.
2. Hypotheses
2.1. Independent variable hypotheses
2.1.1. Perceived crime rate
Legal systems in general try to serve the constituted order and norms in a country and are précised in the law code, which again is fixed in the country’s constitution. This as well as the law differs more or less between cultural groups, continents and state traditions. In Europe, the legal order is the basis for the social life in a country. There are many ways to disturb the established order and criminal behaviour seems to be one of the most influential ones. Thus, crime rate could be a proper indicator of a condition of the legal system.
A question we should ask at this point is what we mean exactly with efficiency of a legal system. It could be defined as the ability of a state or a country to enforce a good working law that guaranties its citizens to live without fear or at least few fear of crime. It could also mean that the citizens believe in their legal system in regard of accomplishing law or stabilizing the societal order. However, high crime rates or much fear of crime are an indicator of a malfunctioning legal system, while an efficient one should reduce crime.
Democracy can develop properly only in an atmosphere of personal freedom and of legal certainty. Actually, this personal freedom is a value of democracy itself as well as the legal system is part of the political system in a country. High crime rates and fear of it avoid free development, free personal decisions, and free market economy and so the establishment of democracy. So the perceived crime rate in a country reduces trust in the countries political institutions and therefore the acceptance of a democratic system.
We assume that there should be a co variation between the statistical crime rate and the perceived crime rate. The reason could be that the fear of being a victim of crime is stronger than the actual possibility of being a victim.