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The Impact of Government Participation on the Political Trust of Populist Party Supporters

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 August 2023

Christina-Marie Juen Open the ORCID record for Christina-Marie Juen [Opens in a new window]
Christina-Marie Juen*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, Technical University Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany
*
Email: christina-marie.juen@tu-darmstadt.de
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Abstract

Citizens are more trustful of politics if their preferred party is an electoral winner and becomes part of the government. However, there remains the question of whether this positive effect of joining the government also holds for supporters of populist parties. Populists show low levels of political trust, as they strongly criticize the political elite. This study argues that voters of populist parties perceive the political system as more responsive to their concerns when their preferred party becomes part of the government and so they become more trustful of politics. Drawing on the case of Austria, the analyses demonstrate that political trust among populist party voters is higher when their party is in government. In contrast, non-populist voters' level of political trust is more stable, even when their party is not in government.

Keywords

populismpolitical trustgovernment participationAustriawinner–loser gap
Type
Article
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 59 , Issue 2 , April 2024 , pp. 425 - 440
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Government and Opposition Ltd

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