Locality as a safe haven: place-based resentment and political trust in local and national institutions

Abstract

Recently, an emerging body of research has diagnosed a ‘crisis of trust’ in rural and peripheral areas. Yet, the majority of these works overlook local institutions as a potential alternative source of governance. Relying on original, nationally representative survey data from nine European countries, this article suggests that local institutions act as a safe haven for individuals with high levels of place-based resentment. Substantially, for these individuals, political trust in the local level significantly exceeds political trust in the national level. This dynamic is largely driven by concerns over representation. The stronger citizens feel that their place is overheard, the more they trust local relative to national institutions. This nuances the narrative of the ‘crisis of trust’ in an important way. Rather than conceiving it as a crisis haunting the political system in general, it seems to be better understood as a crisis of the national level specifically.