Abstract
This paper uses the European Living, Working and COVID-19 survey (Eurofound 2021) to examine the mechanism linking citizens' worsening financial hardship to lower satisfaction with democracy through the mediating role of government support and trust in institutions. We find that as households and firms have struggled to meet loan repayments to creditors, governments have intervened with social support measures that citizens have not judged to be adequate in terms of fairness, integrity, responsiveness and reliability. This has led to a decline in citizens' trust in institutions, exacerbating the impact of increased economic hardship on their satisfaction with democracy.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
The survey covers all the 27 European Union countries: Austria, Belgio, Bulgaria, Cipro, Croazia, Danimarca, Estonia, Finlandia, Francia, Germania, Grecia, Irlanda, Italia, Lettonia, Lituania, Lussemburgo, Malta, Paesi Bassi, Polonia, Portogallo, Repubblica Ceca, Romania, Slovacchia, Slovenia, Spagna, Svezia e Ungheria. It has been administered online.
PROCESS is a tool for computing moderated, mediated and conditional path analysis processes through simultaneous estimation of multiple ordinary least squares regressions. Specifically, PROCESS provides regression model coefficients, standard errors, t and p values, and confidence intervals using OLS regressions, direct and indirect effects in mediation models. PROCESS works similarly to a structural equation modelling programme, although there are several differences detailed in Hayes (2018)
References
Aassve, Arnstein, Tommaso Capezzone, and Mathis Saeys. 2022. Maintaining Trust During the COVID-19 Pandemic, Publications Office of the European Union. Eurofound Luxembourg. https://doi.org/10.2806/707872.
Ahrendt, Daphne, Jorge Cabrita, Eleonora Clerici, John Hurley, Tadas Leončikas, Massimiliano Mascherini, Sara Riso, and Eszter Sandor. 2021. Living, Working and COVID-19. Publications Office of the European Union.
Anderson, Jhon E. 2017. Trust in Government and Willingness to Pay Taxes in Transition Countries. Comparative Economic Studies 59: 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41294-016-0017-x.
Asbrock, Frank, and Immo Fritsche. 2013. Authoritarian Reactions to Terrorist Threat: Who Is Being Threatened, the Me or the We? International Journal of Psychology 48(1): 35–49. https://doi.org/10.1080/00207594.2012.695075.
Becher, Michael, Nicolas Longuet Marx, Vincent Pons, Sylvain Brouard, Martial Foucault, Vincenzo Galasso, Eric Kerrouche, Sandra León Alfonso, and Daniel Stegmueller. 2021. COVID-19, Government Performance, and Democracy: Survey Experimental Evidence from 12 Countries. National Bureau of Economic Research. https://doi.org/10.3386/w29514.
Becher, Michael and Longuet Marx, Nicolas and Pons, Vincent and Brouard, Sylvain and Foucault, Martial and Galasso, Vincenzo and Galasso, Vincenzo and Kerrouche, Eric and León Alfonso, Sandra and Stegmueller, Daniel. 2021. Government Performance and Democracy: Survey Experimental Evidence from 12 Countries During Covid-19 (November 2021). NBER Working Paper No. w29514, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3973292.
Bekiaris, Evangelos, and Irene Daskalopoulou. 2022. Satisfaction with Democracy and Social Capital: Multi-level Model Evidence for the Pre- and Post-Crisis Era. Review of Political Economy 34(3): 468–503. https://doi.org/10.1080/09538259.2021.1894807.
Blind, Peride Kaleağasi. 2007. “Building Trust in Government in the Twenty-First Century - Review of Literature,” 31. Global Forum on Reinventing Government. Vienna, Austria: UNDESA, 2006.
Boin, Arjen, Paul‘t Hart, and Sanneke Kuipers. 2018. “The Crisis Approach.” In the Handbook of Disaster Research, edited by Havidán Rodríguez, William Donner, and Joseph E. Trainor, 23–38. Handbooks of Sociology and Social Research. Cham: Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-63254-4_2
Boin, Arjen, Magnus Ekengren, and Mark Rhinard. 2020. Hiding in Plain Sight: Conceptualizing the Creeping Crisis. Risk, Hazards & Crisis in Public Policy 11(2): 116–138. https://doi.org/10.1002/rhc3.12193.
Bol, Damien, Marco Giani, André Blais, and Peter John Loewen. 2021. The Effect of COVID-19 Lockdowns on Political Support: Some Good News for Democracy? European Journal of Political Research 60(2): 497–505. https://doi.org/10.1111/1475-6765.12401.
Bordignon, Massimo, Nicolò Gatti, and Massimiliano Gaetano Onorato. 2023. Getting Closer or Falling Apart? Euro Area Countries After the Sovereign Debt Crisis. Comparative Economic Studies 65(2): 191–220. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41294-022-00192-5.
Bruch, Sarah K., Myra M. Ferree, and Joe Soss. 2010. From Policy to Polity: Democracy, Paternalism, and the Incorporation of Disadvantaged Citizens. American Sociological Review 75(2): 205–226. https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122410363563.
Campbell, Andrea Louise. 2012. Policy Makes Mass Politics. Annual Review of Political Science 15(1): 333–351. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-polisci-012610-135202.
Christensen, Tom, and Per Lægreid. 2020. Balancing Governance Capacity and Legitimacy: How the Norwegian Government Handled the COVID-19 Crisis as a High Performer. Public Administration Review 80(5): 774–779. https://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13241.
Christmann, Pablo, and Mariano Torcal. 2017. The Political and Economic Causes of Satisfaction with Democracy in Spain—A Twofold Panel Study. West European Politics 40(6): 1241–1266. https://doi.org/10.1080/01402382.2017.1302178.
Dalton, Russell J. 2004. Democratic Challenges, Democratic Choices: The Erosion of Political Support in Advanced Industrial Democracies. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199268436.001.0001.
De Simone, Elina, Lorenzo Cicatiello, Giuseppe Lucio Gaeta, and Mauro Pinto. 2022. Expectations About Future Economic Prospects and Satisfaction with Democracy: Evidence from European Countries during the COVID-19 Crisis. Social Indicators Research 159(3): 1017–1033. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-021-02783-8.
Del Monte, Alfredo, and Luca Pennacchio. 2020. Corruption, Government Expenditure and Public Debt in OECD Countries. Comparative Economic Studies 62: 739–771. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41294-020-00118-z.
Delhey, Jan, Leonie C Steckermeier, Klaus Boehnke, Jan Eichhorn, Ulrich Kühnen, and Christian Welzel. 2021 “A Virus of Distrust? Existential Insecurity and Trust During the Coronavirus Pandemic.” DSS working paper No. 80, Otto-von-Guericke-University Magdeburg, Magdeburg.
DeSeve, G. Edward. 2020. Agile Government and Agile Governance: We Need Both. Agile Government Center. National Academy of Public Administration. https://www.napawash.org/grandchallenges/blog/agile-government-and-agile-governance-we-need-both
Durante, R., Guiso, L., and Gulino, G. 2021. “Asocial Capital: Civic Culture and Social Distancing During Covid-19”. Journal of Public Economics, 194.
Easton, David. 1975. A Re-Assessment of the Concept of Political Support. British Journal of Political Science 5(4): 435–457.
Esaiasson, Peter, Jacob Sohlberg, Marina Ghersetti, and Bengt Johansson. 2021. How the Coronavirus Crisis Affects Citizen Trust in Institutions and in Unknown Others: Evidence from ‘the Swedish Experiment.’ European Journal of Political Research 60(3): 748–760. https://doi.org/10.1111/1475-6765.12419.
Eurofound. 2020. Living, working and COVID-19, COVID-19 series. Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg.
Eurofound. 2021. Living, working and COVID-19 (Update April 2021): Mental health and trust decline across EU as pandemic enters another year. Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg.
Falcone, Rino, Elisa Colì, Silvia Felletti, Alessandro Sapienza, Cristiano Castelfranchi, and Fabio Paglieri. 2020. All We Need Is Trust: How the COVID-19 Outbreak Reconfigured Trust in Italian Public Institutions. Frontiers in Psychology 11: 561747. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.561747.
Fetzer, R. Thiemo, Marc, Witte, Lukas Hensel, Jon Jachimowicz, Johannes Haushofer, Andriy Ivchenko, Stefano Caria, Elena Reutskaja, Christopher P. Roth, Stefano Fiorin, and Margarita Gómez Gordo, 2020. "Global Behaviors and Perceptions at the Onset of the COVID-19 Pandemic," NBER Working Papers 27082, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
Godefroidt, Amélie., Arnim Langer, and Bart Meuleman. 2017. Developing Political Trust in a Developing Country: The Impact of Institutional and Cultural Factors on Political Trust in Ghana. Democratization 24(6): 906–928. https://doi.org/10.1080/13510347.2016.1248416.
Han, Qing, Bang Zheng, Mioara Cristea, Maximilian Agostini, Jocelyn J. Bélanger, Ben Gützkow, Jannis Kreienkamp, PsyCorona Collaboration, and N. Pontus Leander. 2021. Trust in Government Regarding COVID-19 and Its Associations with Preventive Health Behaviour and Prosocial Behaviour during the Pandemic: A Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Study. Psychological Medicine. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0033291721001306.
Hartanto, Dadang, and Siti Masliana Siregar. 2021. Determinants of Overall Public Trust in Local Government: Mediation of Government Response to COVID-19 in Indonesian Context. Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy. 15(2): 261–274. https://doi.org/10.1108/TG-08-2020-0193.
Hayes, Andrew H. 2018. Introduction to Mediation, Moderation and Conditional Process Analysis. A Regression Based Approach, 2nd ed. The Guilford Press.
Hetherington, Marc J. 1998. The Political Relevance of Political Trust. The American Political Science Review 92(4): 791–808. https://doi.org/10.2307/2586304.
Hobolt, Sara B. 2012. Citizen Satisfaction with Democracy in the European Union. JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies 50(s1): 88–105. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-5965.2011.02229.x.
Ivanov, Denis. 2023. Economic Insecurity, Institutional Trust and Populist Voting Across Europe. Comparative Economic Studies. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41294-023-00212-y.
Khachatryan, Knar, and Grigoryan Aleksandr. 2023. Multidimensional Deprivation from Labor Market Opportunities in Armenia: Evidence from 2018 and 2020. Comparative Economic Studies 17: 1–40. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41294-023-00206-w.
Kim, Soonhee, and Jooho Lee. 2012. E-Participation, Transparency, and Trust in Local Government. Public Administration Review 72(6): 819–828. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6210.2012.02593.x.
Kumlin, Staffan, and Bo. Rothstein. 2005. Making and Breaking Social Capital: The Impact of Welfare-State Institutions. Comparative Political Studies 38(4): 339–365. https://doi.org/10.1177/0010414004273203.
Linting, M., J.J. Meulman, P.J. Groenen, and A.J. van der Kooij. 2007. Stability of Nonlinear Principal Components Analysis: An Empirical Study Using the Balanced Bootstrap. Psychological Methods 12(3): 359–379. https://doi.org/10.1037/1082-989X.12.3.359.
Loveless, P. Mathiew., and Chiara Binelli. 2020. Economic Expectations and Satisfaction with Democracy: Evidence from Italy. Government and Opposition 55(3): 413–429. https://doi.org/10.1017/gov.2018.31.
Mann, Frank D., Robert F. Krueger, and Kathleen D. Vohs. 2020. Personal economic anxiety in response to COVID-19. Personality and Individual Differences 167: 110233. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2020.110233.
Mansoor, Mahnaz. 2021. Citizens’ Trust in Government as a Function of Good Governance and Government Agency’s Provision of Quality Information on Social Media During COVID-19. Government Information Quarterly 38(4): 101597. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.giq.2021.101597.
Mari, Silvia, Homero Gil, Ahmet de Zúñiga, Katja Hanke Suerdem, Gary Brown, Roosevelt Vilar, Diana Boer, and Michal Bilewicz. 2022. Conspiracy Theories and Institutional Trust: Examining the Role of Uncertainty Avoidance and Active Social Media Use. Political Psychology 43(2): 277–296. https://doi.org/10.1111/pops.12754.
Miller, Arthur H., and Ola Listhaug. 1990. Political Parties and Confidence in Government: A Comparison of Norway, Sweden and the United States. British Journal of Political Science 20(3): 357–386. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007123400005883.
Mizrahi, Shlomo, Nissim Cohen, Eran Vigoda‐Gadot, and Dana Natan Krup. 2022. “Compliance with Government Policies during Emergencies: Trust, Participation and Protective Actions.” Governance, August, gove.12716. https://doi.org/10.1111/gove.12716.
Mizrahi, Shlomo, Eran Vigoda-Gadot, and Nissim Cohen. 2021. How Well Do They Manage a Crisis? The Government’s Effectiveness During the COVID-19 Pandemic. Public Administration Review 81(6): 1120–1130. https://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13370.
Moon, M. Jae. 2020. Fighting COVID-19 with Agility, Transparency, and Participation: Wicked Policy Problems and New Governance Challenges. Public Administration Review 80(4): 651–656. https://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13214.
Nadeau, Richard, Vincent Arel-Bundock, and Jean-François. Daoust. 2019. Satisfaction with Democracy and the American Dream. The Journal of Politics 81(3): 1080–1084. https://doi.org/10.1086/703070.
Nooteboom, Bart. 2007. Social Capital, Institutions and Trust. Review of Social Economy 65(1): 29–53.
Nunn, N., Qian, N., and Wen, J. 2018. “Distrust and political turnover”. Working paper No. 24187, National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER).
OECD. 2017. Trust and Public Policy: How Better Governance Can Help Rebuild Public Trust. OECD Public Governance Reviews: OECD. https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264268920-en.
Ostrom, Elinor. 2009. “Building Trust to Solve Commons Dilemmas: Taking Small Steps to Test an Evolving Theory of Collective Action.” In Games, Groups, and the Global Good, edited by Simon A. Levin, 207–28. Springer Series in Game Theory. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer, Berlin. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-85436-4_13.
Ostrom, Elinor. 1998. A Behavioral Approach to the Rational Choice Theory of Collective Action: Presidential Address, American Political Science Association, 1997. American Political Science Review 92(1): 1–22. https://doi.org/10.2307/2585925.
Ostrom, Vincent. 2008. The Intellectual Crisis in American Public Administration. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.
Paniagua, Pablo. 2022. Elinor Ostrom and Public Health. Economy and Society 51(2): 211–234. https://doi.org/10.1080/03085147.2022.2028973.
Patashnik, Eric and Patashnik, Eric and Zelizer, Julian E. “When Policy Does Not Remake Politics: The Limits of Policy Feedback.” APSA 2009 Toronto Meeting Paper, Toronto, Canada, 2009. https://ssrn.com/abstract=1449996
Plutzer, Eric. 2010. “Do Highly Exclusive Social Welfare Programs Increase Political Inequality? A Comparative Analysis of the 50 US States,” 29.
Putnam, Robert D. 1993. What Makes Democracy Work? National Civic Review 82(2): 101–107. https://doi.org/10.1002/ncr.4100820204.
Quaranta, Mario, and Sergio Martini. 2016. Does the economy really matter for satisfaction with democracy? Longitudinal and cross-country evidence from the European Union. Electoral Studies 42: 164–174. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.electstud.2016.02.015.
Repucci, Sarah, and Amy Slipowitz. Freedom in the World. Washington DC: Freedom House. 2022 .https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2022
Rickert, Edward J. 1998. Authoritarianism and Economic Threat: Implications for Political Behavior. Political Psychology 19(4): 707–720. https://doi.org/10.1111/0162-895X.00128.
Roccato, Michele, Nicoletta Cavazza, Pasquale Colloca, and Silvia Russo. 2020. A Democratic Emergency After a Health Emergency? Exposure to COVID-19, Perceived Economic Threat and Support for Anti-Democratic Political Systems. Social Science Quarterly 101(6): 2193–2202. https://doi.org/10.1111/ssqu.12865.
Rosenthal, U., and A. Kouzmin. 1997. Crises and Crisis Management: Toward Comprehensive Government Decision Making. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 7(2): 277–304. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.jpart.a024349.
Rothstein, Bo. 2017. “Corruption and Social Trust: Why the Fish Rots From the Head Down.” Translated by E.A. Vakhrusheva. Research Yearbook. Institute of Philosophy and Law. Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences 17 (1): 37–60. https://doi.org/10.17506/ryipl.2016.17.1.3760.
Schraff, Dominik. 2021. Political Trust during the Covid-19 Pandemic: Rally around the Flag or Lockdown Effects? European Journal of Political Research 60(4): 1007–1017. https://doi.org/10.1111/1475-6765.12425.
Soss, Joe. 1999. Lessons of Welfare: Policy Design, Political Learning, and Political Action. American Political Science Review 93(2): 363–380. https://doi.org/10.2307/2585401.
Stipak, Brian. 1979. Citizen Satisfaction with Urban Services: Potential Misuse as a Performance Indicator. Public Administration Review 39(1): 46. https://doi.org/10.2307/3110378.
Thomson, Stephen, and Eric C.. Ip. 2020. COVID-19 Emergency Measures Are Hurting Democracy Globally. American Journal of Public Health 110(9): 1356–1357. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2020.305816.
Tverdostup, Maryna. 2022. COVID-19 and Gender Gaps in Employment, Wages, and Work Hours: Lower Inequalities and Higher Motherhood Penalty. Comparative Economic Studies. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41294-022-00198-z.
Tyler, Tom R. 2005. Policing in Black and White: Ethnic Group Differences in Trust and Confidence in the Police. Police Quarterly 8(3): 322–342. https://doi.org/10.1177/1098611104271105.
Vlachová, Kláva. 2019. Lost in transition, found in recession? Satisfaction with democracy in Central Europe before and after economic crises. Communist and Post-Communist Studies 52(3): 227–234. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.postcomstud.2019.07.007.
Wagner, Alexander F., Friedrich G. Schneider, and Martin Halla. 2009. The Quality of Institutions and Satisfaction with Democracy in Western Europe—A Panel Analysis. European Journal of Political Economy 25(1): 30–41. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2008.08.001.
Weinberg, James. 2022. Trust, Governance, and the Covid-19 Pandemic: An Explainer Using Longitudinal Data from the United Kingdom. The Political Quarterly 93(2): 316–325. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-923X.13131.
Yang, Kaifeng, and Marc Holzer. 2006. The Performance-Trust Link: Implications for Performance Measurement. Public Administration Review 66(1): 114–126. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6210.2006.00560.x.
Acknowledgements
We thank two referees for providing important insights to enhance this work. We also gratefully acknowledge the RUCAM Workshop on Analytical Modelling 2021–2022, Radboud University, (Nijmegen, The Netherlands) for accepting this study for presentation and discussion in their sessions. Finally, we would like to express our thanks to Prof. Tarkan Cavusoglu of the Department of Public Finance, Hacettepe University: Ankara, TR, for providing important feedback and suggestions to improve this work.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Appendix
Rights and permissions
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
About this article
Cite this article
Poma, E., Pistoresi, B. Government Support Measures, Trust in Institutions and Effects on Satisfaction with Democracy During the COVID-19 Outbreak. Comp Econ Stud (2023). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41294-023-00223-9
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41294-023-00223-9
Keywords
- Economic distress
- Government support measures
- Institutional trust
- Satisfaction with democracy
- COVID-19
- Mediation analysis