Political Confidence and Democracy in Europe

This book examines the antecedents and consequences of citizens’ confidence in different political institutions and authorities. Its main argument states that a distinction between confidence in representative and regulative institutions and authorities is of crucial importance in order to gain novel insights into the relevance of political confidence for the viability of democratic systems. Relying on individual-level data from the European Social Survey (ESS), the author provides empirical evidence that citizens from a total of twenty-one European countries make a distinction between confidence in representative institutions and authorities and confidence in regulative institutions and authorities. Furthermore, the author shows that both types of political confidence emanate from different sources and are associated with varying consequences. Overall, these findings indicate that confidence in representative and confidence in regulative institutions and authorities establish two qualitatively different types of political confidence, each with distinct implications for the functioning and well-being of modern democracies.

• Political trust
• Institutional trust
• Political support
• Democratic performance
• Legitimacy crisis
• Social capital
• Political participation
• Democratic norms
• European Social Survey (ESS)
• Comparative politics
• Political confidence
• Political authorities
• Representative institutions
• Regulative institutions
• democracy

• GESIS, Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences, Mannheim, Germany

  Christian Schnaudt

Christian Schnaudt is a research fellow at GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences in Mannheim, Germany. Prior to that, he worked as a research associate and lecturer at the Department of Political Science at the University of Mannheim, Germany. His research interests are in the area of political behaviour and comparative politics, including topics such as political confidence and trust, political participation, and democratic norms and values. His research has been published in the European Journal of Political Research, The Journal of Information Technology & Politics, and methods, data & analyses.

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