The socioeconomic status (SES) of individuals is related to their political trust. The higher their status, the more they trust the political system. This well-known relation is generally explained in terms of socialisation. The higher the SES, the more people are exposed to democratic values or interact with trustworthy institutions. This increases political interest, which increases political trust. In this study, we propose a complementary explanation: lower SES enhances the perception that the social fabric is breaking down (anomie), and this reduces political trust. We test this hypothesis by using structural equation modeling (SEM) on a representative survey (n = 1203) conducted in the Wallonia region of Belgium. That region appeared suited to explore our hypothesis because of its long-term economic difficulties. The results reveal that those of low SES have less political trust because they perceive more anomie in society. These results are consistent even when the alternative explanation is taken into account (the socialisation hypothesis). Moreover, the results also showed that a higher level of anomie reduced interpersonal trust which reduced political trust (serial mediation). These results highlight the key role of anomie when considering the relation of SES with political trust.
Generally, the fact that low SES individuals have lower political trust is explained by lower socialization to political functioning. We put forward a complementary explanation that low SES individuals perceive society as more anomic (disintegrated by the absence of moral norms) which goes hand in hand with lower political trust. Furthermore, the perception of anomie is associated with lower interpersonal trust which also goes with lower political trust. The perception of anomie thus appears to be a central element in understanding the difference in political trust between low and high SES individuals.
Individuals with low socioeconomic status (SES) tend to have less political trust than individuals with high socioeconomic status (
Political trust, which broadly refers to the confidence that citizens have in their political institutions and in the regime they represent, is considered an important indicator of political legitimacy (
At the individual level, political trust also influences the way people make their voices heard. For example, people with high political trust tend to engage in more institutionalised forms of participation (civil society, participation in elections), whereas people with low political trust tend to engage in more challenging forms of participation vis-à-vis the political system (
Widespread accounts point out the difference in political trust between those of low and high SES (
All these explanations of the link between SES and political trust are based on differences between those of low and high SES. However, the position of individuals in society may also create a more general perception of the state of the society (i.e., anomie) which is also a determinant of political trust. In the next section, we discuss recent work that suggests that societal anomie can be a predictor of political trust and how this perception is related to SES.
The concept of anomie was first developed by the French sociologist Emile
What is important in that social psychological perspective is that anomie is defined as the perceived state of the society by individuals and not as the objective state of the society. For that reason, this conception can be seen to be close to the concept of “social unease” developed in sociology by
Another distinction should also be made between the concept of anomie and the concept of interpersonal trust. Although there seems to be some overlap between the two, we believe it is important to distinguish them for conceptual and operational reasons. Conceptually, interpersonal trust is an attitude toward others (do I trust other people?), whereas anomie (in its social fabric subdimension) is the perception of a generalized loss of interpersonal trust viewed here as a social phenomenon (do I perceive that people are not trusting each other anymore?). This distinction is highlighted by
The interest in studying anomie on political variables lies in the fact that it can be linked to the socio-economic context but also to less tangible fears or anxieties. Anomie hence focuses on the perception that individuals have of society (
The objective conditions that increase anomie have been the focus of several studies. Those conditions are marked by rapid changes that can be political (
Regarding the subjective conditions for the perception of anomie,
The question then is how the social context may interact with the perception that people have of the state of the society due to their social position and how this affects political trust. Firstly, we have already mentioned that
The evidence presented so far leads us to formulate the hypotheses that are summarised in a model (
This study was carried out in Wallonia, one of the three regions of Belgium. Its population speaks French There is also a German speaking community in Wallonia. This community lives in municipalities close to Germany and has a population of around 80,000 people (around 2% of the Walloon population). However, this community was not interviewed in the survey.
The survey was conducted by the Institut Wallon de l’Évaluation de la Prospective et de la Statistique (IWEPS) which is the Walloon regional institute of statistics in Belgium. This institute performs a social survey every 3–4 years with core questions that are recurrent, and peripheral questions that change from wave to wave. In 2018, when the data were collected, the main theme of the survey was about political opinion and political trust.
The data Only the variables used in this study are publicly available in the supplementary materials. All the variables of the survey are not publicly available due to the GDPR. However, they can be made available for research purposes by contacting the first author and signing a confidentiality agreement.
There were 1304 completed questionnaires drawn from a sample of 2600 addresses that were drawn at random The random selection was made at two levels: a first random drawing of 130 postal codes among the French-speaking municipalities of Wallonia then a random drawing of 20 addresses for each of the postal codes.
Because of the length of the survey, each construct could be measured with only a few items (typically fewer than four).
To measure political trust we followed the proposition given by
This was measured by two indices. The first was the highest level of education into 11 categories (1 = not completed primary education; 2 = primary education; 3 = lower secondary education; 4 = higher secondary vocational education 5 = higher secondary technical education; 6 = higher secondary general education 7 = seventh year of vocational education and apprenticeship; 8 = higher education, short type; 9 = higher education, long type; 10 = university education; 11 = doctoral and post-doctoral education). The second index was the net income per month of the household into 11 categories (1 = less than 1000 euros; 2 = 1000–1499 euros; 3 = 1500–1999 euros; 4 = 2000–2499 euros; 5 = 2500–2999 euros; 6 = 3000–3499 euros; 7 = 3500–3999 euros; 8 = 4000–4999 euros; 9 = 5000–5999 euros; 10 = 6000–6999 euros; 11 = 7000 euros and above). The correlation between the two was high (
The anomie scale developed by
This was measured with a single item, adapted from the European Social Survey (e.g., Original item in European Social Survey is: ‘Generally speaking, would you say that most people can be trusted or that you can’t be too careful in life?’
This was measured with a single item: ‘Some people are very interested in politics, others not at all. For you, how interested are you’? (1 = not at all interested to 4 = very interested). This single item has become a standard measure in research on political attitudes. It is preferred to other more behavioural measures (e.g., related to the frequency of interpersonal discussions on political topics) that can be viewed as consequences of political interest.
Structural equation modeling (SEM) was chosen for the analysis for two reasons. It permits assessing the validity of the constructs and it allows the construction of different models of the relations between the variables. The first part of this discussion presents the results from analysing the constructs. The second part identifies the model that best fits our hypotheses. A third part will compare alternative models. All analyses were done with the lavaan package in
To assess the validity of the constructs, we first ran an exploratory factor analysis For this analysis the minimum residuals were used for the method of extraction and Oblimin was used for the rotation.
To assess the independence of the constructs, we then ran four confirmatory factor analyses (CFA1 to CFA4). We did so to establish whether the constructs of anomie and interpersonal trust were independent and whether items should be removed to improve measurability. In the first model (CFA1), all the items loaded on the construct they were supposed to measure. In the second model (CFA2), only the first three anomie items loaded on it, and the fourth item under anomie and the single item of trust loaded on interpersonal trust (as suggested by the EFA). In the third model (CFA3), only the first three items were considered and loaded on anomie. The single trust item loaded on interpersonal trust. Finally, in the fourth model (CFA4), only the first two items were considered and loaded on anomie because the analysis of the previous models revealed that the third item still had residuals (> .100) with one item of political trust. The single trust item loaded on interpersonal trust. The comparison of these four models is presented in
Model | χ2 | χ2/ |
TLI | CFI | RMSEA | SRMR | AIC | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
CFA1 | 273 | 36 | 7.58 | < .001 | .836 | .893 | .074 | .053 | 36539.799 |
CFA2 | 187 | 35 | 5.34 | < .001 | .892 | .931 | .060 | .042 | 36456.222 |
CFA3 | 110 | 27 | 4.07 | < .001 | .930 | .958 | .050 | .035 | 33388.805 |
CFA4 | 52.9 | 19 | 2.78 | < .001 | .965 | .982 | .038 | .022 | 29943.203 |
Only the last model (CFA4) reached all the criteria of the fit indices. For instance, CFA3 reached all the criteria except the χ2/
Measure | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
---|---|---|---|---|
1. SES (2 items) | — | |||
2. Political trust (3 items) | .165*** | — | ||
3. Anomie (2 items) | –.330*** | –.364*** | — | |
4. Interpersonal trust (1 item) | .130*** | .290*** | –.332*** | — |
5. Political interest (1 item) | .314*** | .234*** | –.092* | .114*** |
*
First, if we look at the link between SES (our independent variable) and political trust (our dependent variable) we see a positive correlation even if the coefficient is not very high. This suggests that SES is nevertheless linked to political trust.
When we look then at the link between these two variables and anomie (the mediator), we see that SES is highly (negatively) correlated with anomie. This means that the higher the SES, the less people perceive society as anomic. Moreover, we see that anomie is also highly (negatively) correlated with political trust. This means that the more people perceive society as anomic, the less they trust politics. Because the two correlations are significant, this fulfils the criteria to test a mediation between SES and political trust by anomie.
When we consider interpersonal trust, we see that it is much less highly correlated with SES, however, it is highly correlated with political trust and with anomie. The fact that interpersonal trust is more highly correlated with the second also fulfils the criteria to test a mediation between anomie and political trust by interpersonal trust (serial mediation).
Finally, when we consider political interest as an alternative mediator of the relation between SES and political trust, we see that anomie is quite highly correlated with SES and with political trust. This makes it a potentially good candidate to be a mediator.
Whether these different mediators are competing or alternative explanations of the relation between SES and political trust is the focus of the following section.
The model in
The fit indices indicate that the model fits the data well. Although χ2 is significant: χ2(22) = 61.64, It was calculated by using the metaSEM package on R developed by
Although the proposed model (see
In the first alternative model (M2), we tested the hypothesis that interpersonal trust would be the first mediator in the serial mediation between SES and political trust, and anomie would be the second mediator. As in Model 1, political interest was set as an independent mediator of the serial mediation. The second model, thus, corresponds exactly to the graphical representation of the first model if we invert anomie and interpersonal trust. As shown in
Model | χ2 | χ2/ |
TLI | CFI | RMSEA | SRMR | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
M1 | 61.64 | 22 | 2.80 | .965 | .979 | .038 | .026 | |
M2 | 84.28 | 22 | 3.83 | .945 | .966 | .048 | .036 | |
M3 | 113.21 | 22 | 5.15 | .920 | .951 | .058 | .045 | |
M4 | 60.17 | 21 | 2.87 | .963 | .979 | .039 | .025 |
In the second alternative model (M3), we tested the hypothesis of three independent paths of mediation instead of two paths (one with a serial mediation) as in Models 1 and 2. As shown in
The last alternative model (M4) is a combination of the two previous ones. As in M3, we tested the hypothesis of three independent indirect paths, but in this model, we set a covariate path between anomie and interpersonal trust. In this way, an increase in one construct implies an increase in the other one, but with a bidirectional link between them. As shown in
The primary objective of this study was to assess the extent to which anomie could be a mediator of the link between SES and political trust with data that are known to be representative of the general population of a well-defined context. The results showed that anomie indeed mediated the relation between SES and political trust. Further, it mediated the effect independently of the mediating effect of political interest. In other words, the perception of anomie complements political interest in explaining the link between SES and political trust. Moreover, in the context of the economic difficulties in Wallonia, anomie was a better explanation of this link than political interest, as the comparison of the effect size has shown. This suggests that the explanatory power of anomie should not be underestimated compared to other classical explanations based on individual differences in socialisation patterns. Whether anomie is a better mediator only during general economic difficulties has yet to be tested in other conditions. One can indeed imagine that a better economic situation, if it is linked to the greater social mobility of individuals, could reduce the link between SES and anomie. This shows that anomie, the perception of the state of society by individuals, is an important predictor of trust in the political system, and it deserves to be studied.
Other studies have shown that anomie is not only related to the position of individuals in society but is also influenced by the social context. Social inequality, for example, increases a feeling of anomie in the whole population regardless of whether individuals are of low or high SES (
The second set of findings regards the role of interpersonal trust in explaining the relation between SES and political trust. This view of interpersonal trust comes from the literature on social capital (
To the best of our knowledge, the present study is the first to consider the role of anomie as a potential mediator of the link between SES and political trust. Moreover, the representativeness of the data within the general population allows generalising the results with a reasonable degree of confidence. It should be noted, however, that this study is cross-sectional. That means that all variables are measured at the same time. It is therefore difficult to establish strict causal links between them. Nonetheless, this study emphasises that the perception of anomie is a crucial mechanism for understanding the differences in political trust between people of low and high SES. It would be interesting in further research to test what increases the gap in anomie between those of low and high SES. Is the inequality of society likely to increase or decrease this gap? Is the effect the same when the inequality is structural or when it appeared recently? The answers to these questions would reveal the importance of the perception of anomie and its consequences for political trust for individuals with low SES in different contexts.
Variables | n | % |
---|---|---|
Gender | ||
Female | 651 | 49.92 |
Male | 653 | 50.08 |
Age | ||
18–24 | 139 | 10.66 |
25–34 | 198 | 15.18 |
35–44 | 185 | 14.19 |
45–54 | 241 | 18.48 |
55–64 | 235 | 18.02 |
65–74 | 190 | 14.59 |
74 and over | 116 | 8.90 |
Education | ||
1) Not completed primary education | 25 | 1.92 |
2) Primary education | 120 | 9.20 |
3) Lower secondary education | 217 | 16.64 |
4) Higher secondary vocational education | 192 | 14.72 |
5) Higher secondary technical education | 159 | 12.19 |
6) Higher secondary general education | 162 | 12.42 |
7) Seventh year of vocational education and apprenticeship | 45 | 3.45 |
8) Higher education, short type | 214 | 16.41 |
9) Higher education, long type | 49 | 3.76 |
10) University education | 115 | 8.82 |
11) Doctoral and post-doctoral education | 6 | 0.46 |
Net income of the household (per month) | ||
1) Less than 1000 euros | 31 | 2.47 |
2) 1000–1499 euros | 173 | 13.81 |
3) 1500–1999 euros | 190 | 15.16 |
4) 2000–2499 euros | 173 | 13.81 |
5) 2500–2999 euros | 168 | 13.41 |
6) 3000–3499 euros | 139 | 11.09 |
7) 3500–3999 euros | 140 | 11.17 |
8) 4000–4999 euros | 134 | 10.69 |
9) 5000–5999 euros | 54 | 4.31 |
10) 6000–6999 euros | 28 | 2.23 |
11) 7000 euros and above | 23 | 1.84 |
Items | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | Uniqueness |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Anomie1 | 0.4109554 | 0.7504106 | |||
Anomie2 | 0.6655523 | 0.5082891 | |||
Anomie3 | 0.5063626 | 0.7134035 | |||
Anomie4 | -0.6281567 | 0.5873221 | |||
Politics Trust | 0.6675961 | 0.5125697 | |||
Parliament Trust | 0.5191841 | 0.6081248 | |||
Political partis Trust | 0.9322166 | 0.1608329 | |||
Interpersonal Trust | 0.4216283 | 0.7355935 | |||
Political Interest | 0.8649471 | ||||
Household Income | 0.6045833 | 0.6393975 | |||
Education | 0.7322666 | 0.4564000 |
For this article data is freely available (see
For this article, the following supplementary materials are available (for access see
The database with the variables used in the study
The codebook of the database
The authors have no funding to report.
The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
The authors have no additional (i.e., non-financial) support to report.