The Conceptualization of Rational and Affective Political Trust among Adolescents

Political trust is commonly regarded as a rational, knowledge-based evaluation of the political system’s trustworthiness. However, this approach neglects the affective nature of political trust, shaped by feelings of belonging and emotions such as pride, hope, and fear towards the political system. Whilst it is argued that affective political trust is developed early in life through socialization and therefore a rather stable attitude; rational political trust is updated more regularly based on current institutional performance and therefore more volatile. Both approaches offer fundamental insights into the concept of political trust. Given that adolescence is the critical age where political trust attitudes are formed, this study examines the empirical evidence of the rational and affective conception of political trust among 14-year-olds across various national contexts. Following a comparative approach, it draws upon data from 30 countries from two waves of the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS), conducted in 2009 and 2016. To examine the rational nature of political trust, we investigate the extent to which political trust is a coherent, object-specific (i.e., distinguishing between order and representative institutions), domain-specific (i.e., distinct from trust in non-political domains, such as trust in people), and knowledge-based judgement that aligns with the country’s institutional trustworthiness. To examine the affective nature of political trust, we investigate the extent to which political trust relates to feelings of pride and attachment to the political system. Analyses are performed within a (multilevel) structural equation modelling framework and include measurement and structural invariance tests. To examine how contextual characteristics might explain the extent to which adolescents’ political trust is rational or affective also country-level covariates (i.e., corruption and human development levels) are included. Preliminary analyses show that political trust is more object- and domain-specific among established democracies compared to new democracies. Further interaction analyses indicate that political trust is more affective (i.e., related more strongly and positively to feelings of national attachment) with growing corruption levels. Finally, we find that corruption levels moderate the relationship between student’s civic knowledge and their political trust, that is positive associations are found in countries with lower levels of public sector corruption whereas negative associations are found in countries with higher corruption levels. The discussion focuses on how these findings contribute to political socialization and citizenship education research.