Determinants of Political Trust Among Egyptian Voters: a Political Marketing Perspective

Determinants of Political Trust Among Egyptian Voters: A Political Marketing Perspective

-WaelKortam, SomaiaShalaby, Cairo University

Introduction

Trust is a significantcomponent in the relationship marketing since there has been a paradigm shift in marketing thoughtfrom a transactional orientation to a relationship orientation (Morgan & Hunt, 1994 ).In order to create a long term relationship there has to be some amount of trust not only for businesses, but also for political marketing campaigns ( Schiffman, Sherman and Kirpalani 2002).political trust can be clarified as a multidimensional construct that includes trust in political candidates and public officials (i.e., incumbent-based trust), trust in the political system (i.e., regime-based trust) and political cynicism (Schiffman, Sherman and Thelen 2010, Craig, Niemi, & Silver, 1990; Schiffman et al., 2002,). in order to understand the determinants of political trust , literature review in democratic and non-democratic stable regimes suggests that political trust is shaped by both institutional and cultural factors but very little research aimed to examine which of them that is more powerful (Wong, Hsiao, Wan 2009). Grounded on research on the buyer-seller relationship, trust based onlength or level of relationship seem extendable to the relationship between the candidates or office holders and the voting public (Doney, Cannon, 1997; Schiffmanet.,al 2002). But very little research aimed deliberately to study it in political relationships. Consequently, the objectives in this study are to(1) examine the linkage between interpersonal trust and political trust (Regime-based trust, incumbent –based trust and political cynicism, (2) ) examine the linkage between institutional based trust and political trust (Regime-based trust, incumbent –based trust and political cynicism) , (3) examine the linkage betweendevelopment based trust and incumbent -based trust. In the following, the background of this study, Conceptual framework, hypotheses,andProposed Research Methodology will be presented .

Literature Review: TheoreticalBackground

Trusthas been the subject ofresearch in numerousfieldssince1950,such asphilosophy, psychology, sociology, management, marketing, political science, and e-commerce (Corritore ,Kracher, and Wiedenbeck 2003). Scholars across various disciplines have defined it in so many different ways according to their ownuniquebeliefs. Moreover, psychologistshave studiedtrustas a personality feature, whereas ssociologistshave studied itas a social structureandeconomistshave studied trustas a mechanismof choice , An extensive review of previous research work on trust shows that those three views could be recapitulated inthreeconcepts: Dispositional Trust, Social Trust ;(Institutional Trust), and interpersonal Trust (McknightChervany, 2002(.

This typology of trust would be valuable if the types of trust are related to each other, where Disposition to trustrefers to a tendency to be willing to depend onothers in general across a broad spectrum of situations and persons, It will influenceinstitution-based trust, and thus reflects beliefs about the situation and influence trust in a specific other; (interpersonal trust) (McKnight & Chervany, 2002).Furthermore, for understanding the facets of Trust, Lewicki and Bunker (1995,1996) published their multidimensional conceptual framework which provided a starting point for thinking about trust within professional relationships, such as those occurring in buyer-seller relationships, and processes by which trust relationships emerge and evolve over time (Mcallister Lewicki 2006). In the Lewicki and Bunker model, trust may exist at three different levels: calculus-based, knowledge-based and identification-based. They propose that trust basically has a calculative nature and may develop to the knowledge level as the relationship parties define the rate of previous successes and move on to the level of identification, where trust would be at its highest, Moreover These dimensions of Trust based onlength and level of relationship can be named as "Development Based Trust", And there is still aneed to examine it in more relationships (Hernandez & Santos, 2010).

The concept of trust is to be found intensively in literature of marketing. Consumer trust refers to the faith that consumers have in the institutions they do business with, Similarly, political trust refers to the faith that voters, as analogous to consumers, have in their elected officers and the government ( CitrinMuste 1999; ,Schiffman et al.,2002). Furthermore, Political Trust refers to the citizens’ or voters’ trust of political candidates, political officeholders, and trust of governmental institutions (e.g. Baier, 1992; Cole, 1973; Schiffman et al., 2010).

There are two broad theoretical approaches that compete to explain Political Trust: institutional and cultural (Mishler & Rose, 2001), but which approach – institutional or cultural – that is more powerful is not totally clear so far (Wong,Hsiao, Wan 2009). Accordingly, academic research in Europe and the US has focused on the level of political trust in government and democratic systems, Asian scholars, on the other hand, paid more attention for the difference in political trust between democratic and non-democratic stable regimes (Wong et al,.2009).

Supporters of the institutional approach indicate that Political Trust develops from rational responses by individuals to the performance of institutions (March, 1988; North, 1990 ; Wong et al.,2009 ). Studies in the US have found that thePerformance of the President, senate, congress and government can all affect the level of Political Trust (Hetherington, 2005; Wong et al ., 2009). Furthermore, other studies have indicated that unconventional institutional factors such as ideological orientations, partisanship, rule of law, the judiciary and the level of participation in policy making have also been found to be related to the acceptance of the government’s policies, trust and satisfaction with the government’s performance. (Hibbing & Theiss -Morse, 2001).On the other hand, those advocating the cultural approach view political trust as an extension of Interpersonal Trust (Wong et al., 2009). Indeed, Rotter (1967, p. 651) defines Interpersonal Trust as: “. . . an expectation held by an individual or a group that the word, promise, verbal or written statement of another individual or group can be relied upon”. Rotter’s statement can be extended into a political context that it could be argued that a form of Interpersonal Trust is: “an expectation held by a voter or a group of voters that the words or promises of a political candidate (or officeholder) can be relied on”, It seemed that "Interpersonal trust is tapping the general trait of trust, whereas incumbent trust is tapping a politically-specific trait of trust".(Schiffman et al., 2010, p. 371). Moreover, after it was found that neither the psychological literature nor the political science or political marketing literature has attempted to find the relationship between the broad Interpersonal Trust and more specific dimensions of Political Trust, (Schiffman, et al 2010) research interest was focused on whether those with a propensity to trust others are more likely to also be the same people who are more likely to be politically trustful , The research focuses on the relationship between Interpersonal Trust and three political trust-related constructs: trust of government form, political cynicism, and incumbent trust. They indicate a strong relationship between Interpersonal Trust and the Incumbent Trust and trust in form of government, and a weak relationship between Interpersonal Trust and Political Cynicism.Lock and Harris (1996, p. 21) point out that "political marketing is concerned with a variety of interacting interest groups, including party members, media, and prospective sources of funding, as well as the electorate”, So it is important to examine aspects of Interpersonal Trust and Political Trust as they impact the overall political process (Schiffman, et al 2010).

After reviewing the previous studies, we can conclude that there are specific gaps in literature that need to be studied, which are:

There has been little attempt to study the trust based on length or level of relationship, which has been coined as development-based trust, in the context of political relationships from a marketing prospective .
There has been little attempt to study the relationship between institution-based trust,interpersonal trust and the dimensions of political trust; Regime-based trust, incumbent –based trust and political cynicism .
There is a need to study the relationship between institution-based trust, interpersonal trust and political trust in unstable transitional democratic regimes.

Exploratory Qualitative research

The following findings could be reached as an output of qualitative research that was carried out through conducting 12 in-depth interviews with Egyptian eligible voters with various demographics:

1- Development based trust (calculus-based, knowledge-based and identification-based) affect trust in political candidates, but there is no relationship between development based trust and Regime-based trust and political cynicism.

2- Generally trusting voters are likely to be more politically trusting in government, political candidates, officers incumbent those with less interpersonal trust more likely to have political cynicism.

3- Institutional based trust has asignificant effect on political trust

Conceptual Framework:

The following proposed model as depicted by figure 1, explain How this research aims to examine the determinates of political trust among Egyptian voters .the conceptual framework argues that there could be three main determinates of political trust ; namely:

(1) interpersonal trust, (2) institutional based trust and (3) development based trust. The dependent variable which is political trust can be categorized into three main underlying dimensions of trust whiche are:

(1)Regime-based trust. (2) incumbent –based trust and (3) political cynicism . the conceptual framework arguments are expressed in research propositions which will be empirically tested in forthcoming research paper.

Figure (1) Marketing Determinants of Political Trust: The Research Model

Testable Research Propositions

The following research propositions express the main theoretical arguments extended by this research to explain the varying levels of political trust as a marketing insight.

R1 : There is a significant and positive relationship between interpersonal trust and regime- based trust.

R2: There is a significant and positive relationship between interpersonal trust and incumbent -based trust.

R3: There is a significant and positive relationship between interpersonal trust and political cynicism.

R4: There is a significant and positive relationship between institution basedtrustand regime-based trust.

R5: There is a significant and positive relationship between institution based trust and incumbent -based trust.

R6: There is a significant and positive relationship between institution based trust and political cynicism.

R7: There is a significant and positive relationship between development based trust and incumbent -based trust.

Adopted and Planned Conclusive Research Methodology

This research has relied on an exploratory research design in the form of critical review of literature and qualitative research in terms of 12 in-depth interviews with eligible voters. Subsequent planned empirical testing of research propositions will be conducted using a conclusive descriptive design. Since the population of Egyptian voters is an indefinite and demographically heterogeneous, a non-probability quota sample will be adopted for data collection purposes. A structured questionnaire composed of interval scales to measure antecedents and levels of political trust whereas nominal scaling would be used to measure the demographic profiles of sampling units. Multiple 3 group discriminan analysis will be the main statistical testing vehicle for empirical substantiation of research propositions as testable hypothesis.

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