Economic Insecurity, Institutional Trust and Populist Voting Across Europe

Abstract

This study revisits the drivers of populist voting in Europe, focusing on the interplay between economic insecurity and institutional trust. Specifically, it examines the degree to which the decision to vote for a populist party is driven by economic insecurity, while explicitly accounting for the moderating role of two types of institutional trust: trust in national institutions and trust in the European Parliament. The paper tests this moderating effect primarily using the European Social Survey (ESS), but also combining it with data from the World Inequality Database (WID). It finds support for the view that trust in institutions moderates the effect of economic insecurity on populist voting, with greater trust associated with less populist voting, except for the most economically insecure members of the population, whose propensity to vote for populist parties is unaffected by institutional trust.