Trust in institutional actors across 22 countries. Examining political, science, and media trust around the world

Abstract

Social trust has long attracted the interest of researchers across different disciplines. Most of previous studies rely on single-country data and consider only one dimension of social trust at a time (e.g., trust in science, the media or political institutions). This research extends a framework developed by the Global Trust Inventory (GTI) by discussing several dimensions of social trust, while simultaneously analyzing how trust in institutions varies across societies. Drawing on an online panel survey collected in 22 countries (N=22,033), we examine cross-country differences in social trust-including government trust, trust in governing bodies, security, and knowledge producers. Additionally, this paper fills a gap in current literature by including a measure of trust in the media. Findings are discussed in the context of comparing emerging and developed countries based on the Human Development Index.