Exploring the measurement of political trust A multilevel observational analysis of six Swedish public agencies
Political trust is a well-used construct and serves both as an explanation and an outcome in the social sciences. Considering the importance of the construct, relatively little attention has been allocated to its measurement. While the exist-ing literature on the measurement of political trust focus...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Elsevier
2024-01-01
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| Series: | Social Sciences and Humanities Open |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590291124000822 |
| _version_ | 1797215902509301760 |
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| author | Oskar Rydén Karl de Fine Licht Björn Rönnerstrand Niklas Harring Bengt Brülde Sverker C. Jagers |
| author_facet | Oskar Rydén Karl de Fine Licht Björn Rönnerstrand Niklas Harring Bengt Brülde Sverker C. Jagers |
| author_sort | Oskar Rydén |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Political trust is a well-used construct and serves both as an explanation and an outcome in the social sciences. Considering the importance of the construct, relatively little attention has been allocated to its measurement. While the exist-ing literature on the measurement of political trust focuses on either developing and validating new scales, or scaling and equivalence assessment of the more gen-eral measures, this article contributes by analysing the contents of the widely used survey items of political trust. Put differently, what is in a typical political trust measure? The analysis uses relevant observational data from Sweden (n = 1760) with repeated questions over six public agencies, where the typically used trust measurement is regressed on theoretically motivated psychological antecedents of trust using a hierarchical heteroskedastic ordered probit model. Results imply that the typical trust measurement contains traces of perceived competence and less so perceived motivation. The results also suggest that political actors do carry meaning beyond the trust construct, influencing both the location and scale of the response distribution. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-24T11:37:27Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-93f94abe24f6437eaad725a007099243 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2590-2911 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-24T11:37:27Z |
| publishDate | 2024-01-01 |
| publisher | Elsevier |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Social Sciences and Humanities Open |
| spelling | doaj.art-93f94abe24f6437eaad725a0070992432024-04-10T04:29:25ZengElsevierSocial Sciences and Humanities Open2590-29112024-01-0110100885Exploring the measurement of political trust A multilevel observational analysis of six Swedish public agenciesOskar Rydén0Karl de Fine Licht1Björn Rönnerstrand2Niklas Harring3Bengt Brülde4Sverker C. Jagers5Department of Political Science, University of Gothenburg, Sweden; Corresponding author.The Department of Technology, Managment and Economics, Chalmers University of Technology, SwedenThe SOM Institute, and the Centre for Collective Action Research, University of Gothenburg, SwedenCentre for Collective Action Research (CeCAR), Department of Political Science, University of Gothenburg, SwedenThe Department of Philosophy, Linguistics, and Theory of Science, University of Gothenburg, SwedenCentre for Collective Action Research (CeCAR), Department of Political Science, University of Gothenburg, SwedenPolitical trust is a well-used construct and serves both as an explanation and an outcome in the social sciences. Considering the importance of the construct, relatively little attention has been allocated to its measurement. While the exist-ing literature on the measurement of political trust focuses on either developing and validating new scales, or scaling and equivalence assessment of the more gen-eral measures, this article contributes by analysing the contents of the widely used survey items of political trust. Put differently, what is in a typical political trust measure? The analysis uses relevant observational data from Sweden (n = 1760) with repeated questions over six public agencies, where the typically used trust measurement is regressed on theoretically motivated psychological antecedents of trust using a hierarchical heteroskedastic ordered probit model. Results imply that the typical trust measurement contains traces of perceived competence and less so perceived motivation. The results also suggest that political actors do carry meaning beyond the trust construct, influencing both the location and scale of the response distribution.http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590291124000822Political trustMeasurementBayesian mixed effect scale-locationSwedenSurvey data |
| spellingShingle | Oskar Rydén Karl de Fine Licht Björn Rönnerstrand Niklas Harring Bengt Brülde Sverker C. Jagers Exploring the measurement of political trust A multilevel observational analysis of six Swedish public agencies Social Sciences and Humanities Open Political trust Measurement Bayesian mixed effect scale-location Sweden Survey data |
| title | Exploring the measurement of political trust A multilevel observational analysis of six Swedish public agencies |
| title_full | Exploring the measurement of political trust A multilevel observational analysis of six Swedish public agencies |
| title_fullStr | Exploring the measurement of political trust A multilevel observational analysis of six Swedish public agencies |
| title_full_unstemmed | Exploring the measurement of political trust A multilevel observational analysis of six Swedish public agencies |
| title_short | Exploring the measurement of political trust A multilevel observational analysis of six Swedish public agencies |
| title_sort | exploring the measurement of political trust a multilevel observational analysis of six swedish public agencies |
| topic | Political trust Measurement Bayesian mixed effect scale-location Sweden Survey data |
| url | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590291124000822 |
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