Egocentric or sociotropic? The effect of political bias perceptions on trust in impartial institutions

Impartial institutions in Europe are increasingly subject to accusations of a political bias. Universities are portrayed as left-wing bastions, the police are associated with the right, and journalists are subject to accusations in both directions. We know from research on political and institutional trust that impartiality and objectivity are crucial for people’s trust in institutions – as evidenced by research on procedural fairness, as well as by the well-documented effect of corruption on trust. We know little, however, about to what extent perceptions of impartiality are politicized among citizens, and how such ‘bias perceptions’ subsequently influence citizens’ trust judgments. Moreover, a crucial puzzle remains unanswered: Do institutional bias perceptions drive citizens’ political trust irrespective of the direction of perceived bias, or only if it runs against their own political views or interests? In other words, are concerns with political bias in institutions ‘sociotropic’ or ‘egocentric’ in nature? We study how perceived political bias impacts trust in institutions among citizens. To do so, we collected original survey data in five European countries (2022, Germany, The Netherlands, Spain, Poland, UK), including items measuring direction of perceived bias (towards the left or right) for a range of actors in institutions (the judicial system, academia, the police, the school system, the civil service, and the media), alongside measures of performance of and trust in these institutions. These data allow us to assess 1) which institutions are seen as biased, and in which directions, 2) to what extent such bias perceptions influence institutional trust (over and above performance evaluations), and 3) how these effects depend on one’s perceived ideological distance to that institution. In case of a sociotropic mechanism, we would expect perceived bias in any direction (left or right) to impact institutional trust, and to find no differences in this effect between left-wing and right-wing respondents. In case of an egocentric mechanism, we expect that one’s own ideological distance to an institution to influence trust, irrespective of whether this institution is perceived as deviating from a neutral position. The selection of six institutions subject to diverse bias accusations allows us to test the general applicability of these mechanisms beyond specific institutional contexts. Our study makes three major contributions. First, we cover uncharted terrain by systematically mapping political bias perceptions across a set of institutions in five countries. Second, we add to the literature on institutional trust by introducing perceived political bias as a new explanatory variable, and thereby shed light on the potentially political-ideological roots of trust judgments. Third, we contribute to research on the consequences of polarization by assessing to what extent such polarization spills over to evaluations of institutions. Impartial institutions form the common ground in our democracies – understanding potential threats to the legitimacy of institutions is thus crucial to the functioning of our democracy.