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When trust is not enough. A longitudinal analysis of political trust and political competence during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Finland

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 June 2022

Elina Kestilä-Kekkonen Open the ORCID record for Elina Kestilä-Kekkonen [Opens in a new window] ,
Aki Koivula Open the ORCID record for Aki Koivula [Opens in a new window]  and
Aino Tiihonen
Elina Kestilä-Kekkonen*
Affiliation:
Faculty of Management and Business, Tampere University, Tampere, Finland
Aki Koivula
Affiliation:
Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Turku, Turku, Finland
Aino Tiihonen
Affiliation:
Faculty of Management and Business, Tampere University, Tampere, Finland
*
*E-mail: elina.kestila-kekkonen@tuni.fi
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Abstract

In this study, we explored the longitudinal relationship of political trust and subjective political competence during the COVID-19 outbreak. We also examined how levels of political trust and political competence were associated with compliance with COVID-19 recommendations. We used three-wave panel data including 2,205 observations (N = 735) to study changes within and between individuals from 2017 to 2020. The last round of the survey was conducted at the peak of the first wave of COVID-19. The measures included political trust, subjective political competence, political interest, multiple background variables, and measures for compliance with the social distancing recommendations. We found that Finns’ political trust increased significantly during the first wave of COVID-19. The between-individuals analysis suggested that political competence was negatively associated with trust. The results also indicated that citizens’ compliance with COVID-19 recommendations was directly linked to political trust but depended also on the interaction between competence and trust.

Keywords

political trustpolitical competenceCOVID-19Finlandlongitudinal survey
Type
Research Article
Information
European Political Science Review , Volume 14 , Issue 3 , August 2022 , pp. 424 - 440
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of European Consortium for Political Research

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Footnotes

†

Kestilä-Kekkonen and Koivula contributed equally to this work.

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