Confidence in Absentia: Migration, Language and Domestic Political Trust

Jaakko Hillo (University of Helsinki) is a university lecturer in political science at the University of Helsinki, Faculty of Social Science. His postdoctoral research has focused on experimental public administration and the political behavioural implications of migration. Isak Vento (Abo Akademi) is a postdoctoral researcher at Abo Akademi, Faculty of Politics, Economy, and Law. His research is focused on political behaviour, minorities and political trust. Abstract: This article investigates the relationship between migration and trust in a country’s political institutions. Recent research has shown that migration from high-trusting countries to other high-trusting countries bolsters trust in home country political institutions, due to nostalgia. However, the reason for this discrepancy compared to residents remains underexplored and under-theorised. This study aims to fill the gap concerning the micro dynamics of migrants’ trust in home country institutions. Conceptually, we argue that language status can significantly influence the formation of political trust. The endeavour is of increasing social importance given the current development of democratic franchising of migrant groups in Western democracies. Our research design is quasi-experimental. We employ matching techniques to mimic a randomized experiment using observational data. Finland offers a unique case with its minority Swedish-speaking population with strong constitutional and institutional rights. The data, drawn from four closely aligned surveys involving both residents and emigrants of Finnish and Swedish-speaking Finns, allows us to discern migration effects and dynamics related to language status, which we contend gives rise to distinct attachments to political institutions. The analysis reveals that migration enhances homeland political trust, but the effect is notably stronger among the Swedish-speaking Finns, suggesting that the nostalgic increase in trust may be linked to the prominence of state institutions for a de facto minority group.