polarization

A new paper titled “The winner takes all the trust: populism, democracy, and winner-loser gaps in political trust in Central and Southern Europe”, published in the Journal of Contemporary European Studies, analyzes the effects of the status of the supported political party (whether it is government leader, junior coalition partner, or in the opposition) and the party’s level of populism, on people’s political trust. From the abstract: Studies typically find that supporters of populist parties exhibit low political trust.

A new paper, co-authored by Marta Kołczyńska and Ireneusz Sadowski, published in the journal Acta Politica, analyzes the effects of electoral winner or loser status and performance evaluations on political trust in Poland, in the context of increasing political polarization. From the abstract: Individuals with more favorable evaluations of government performance exhibit higher trust in the political system. People also tend to put more confidence in political institutions led by the party they support or identify with.