Den politiska tillitens skillnader - En kvantitativ studie av tillitslandet Sverige

Sammanfattning: Political trust is crucial for well-functioning societies, but what happens to a high trust country as Sweden when people from other cultures move there? The aim of this thesis is to investigate whether political trust differs between domestically and foreign-born swedes. Furthermore, other factors that can generate political trust has been analyzed. The theoretical framework departs from Mishler and Rose’s dividing between cultural theory which sees political trust as a cultural trait based in socialization processes, and institutional theory seeing it as a rational evaluation of institutions’ performance. The hypotheses were tested through linear regression analysis on data collected by the SOM-institute 2016. In contrast to the hypothesis the study shows that people born outside Europe has higher political trust than people born in Sweden. Furthermore, interpersonal trust has a positive effect on political trust and women have higher political trust than men. Regarding institutional theories political trust seems positively connected to peoples’ evaluation of public service and national economy. People with political interest and left voters also have higher political trust, whilst Sweden Democrats are less trusting. Thus, the concern of political trust might not be where a person is born but rather other groups within society.