Confidence Across Cleavage: The Swiss Rural–Urban Divide, Place-Based Identity and Political Trust

Abstract

Since political trust is crucial to the survival of political systems, securing its high levels is essential. While Switzerland exhibits a large rural–urban divide in direct democratic votes, it has not yet been researched whether such a divide also exists with regard to political trust. In my investigation of the Swiss rural–urban divide in political trust, I bring in place as a social identity and evaluate whether the rural–urban divide is contingent upon place-based identity. I employ OLS regression models using original survey data from 2022 with about 4,000 respondents. Results reveal a significant but irrelevantly small rural–urban difference in political trust. However, when interacting place-based identity with place of living, I find that identity inverts the rural–urban divide. When place-based identity is low, rural residents exhibit higher levels of political trust than urban residents, but when place-based identity is high, trust is higher in urban than in rural places.