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Abstract: This article focuses on the interplay between political corruption and trust, both inter-
personal and institutional. A model of corruption and trust is tested based on data from Transpar-
ency International and the European Social Survey. The European states which have not been
yet considered in this context vary widely in the pervasiveness and level of corruption and, thus,
offer an excellent case to study this relationship. Both new and established European democra-
cies have experienced episodes of government corruption. Using pooled data from 24 European
countries multivariate regressions show that lack of interpersonal trust increases perceived politi-
cal corruption. Political corruption lowers trust in political institutions. Furthermore, twenty years
after the collapse of communism, differences between Western and Central and Eastern European
countries still prevail.
Keywords: Corruption · Trust · Democracy
Korruption und Vertrauen – Ein Modellentwurf
Zusammenfassung: Der vorliegende Artikel untersucht das Wechselverhältnis von politischer
Korruption und Vertrauen, sowohl auf interpersonaler als auch auf institutioneller Ebene. Basie-
rend auf Daten von Transparency International und dem European Social Survey wird hierfür
ein Modell entworfen und getestet. Europäische Staaten, die in diesem Zusammenhang bislang
von der Forschung unberücksichtigt blieben, variieren deutlich bezüglich der Verbreitung und
dem Grad von Korruption und bieten sich somit für eine Analyse an. Basierend auf gepoolten
Daten von 24 europäischen Ländern, zeigen multivariate Regressionsanalysen, dass das Fehlen
von interpersonalem Vertrauen die wahrgenommene politische Korruption vergrößert, während
Korruption wiederum Vertrauen in Institutionen verringert. Zudem wird deutlich, dass auch 20
Jahre nach dem Zusammenbruch des Kommunismus immer noch Unterschiede zwischen west-
europäischen sowie mittel- und osteuropäischen Ländern herrschen.
Schlüsselwörter: Korruption · Vertrauen · Demokratie
Z Vgl Polit Wiss
DOI 10.1007/s12286-013-0159-4
Corruption and trust: a model design
Ina Kubbe
© Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden 2013
I. Kubbe ()
Institute for Political Science, Leuphana University Lüneburg,
Scharnhorststr. 1, 21335 Lüneburg, Germany
e-mail: ina.kubbe@uni.leuphana.de
2I. Kubbe
1 Introduction
Corruption—the “abuse of entrusted power for private gain” (TI 2013a)—is a major issue
in the international press and in the scientic community. In contrast to the previous
practice of secrecy and denial, corruption is a topic which is seriously discussed on the
highest political and executive level. As it erupted as a global problem in the 1990s,
numerous international organisations reacted with several anti-corruption programs and
agreements1 (Collier 2002). However, especially political corruption2 is still a problem
which particularly confronts autocratic and transformation systems as well as young and
established democracies. The well-known international non-governmental organisation
Transparency International (TI) regards political corruption as “one of the greatest chal-
lenges of the contemporary world. It undermines good government, fundamentally dis-
torts public policy, leads to the misallocation of resources, harms the private sector and
private sector development and particularly hurts the poor” (TI 2013b). Corruption vio-
lates the fundamental principles of democracy such as equality, transparency, accountabil-
ity and fairness and threatens regime stability (Anderson and Tverdova 2003; Sandholtz
and Koetzle 2000; Warren 2006; Chang and Chu 2006). It promotes social inequality,
disturbs macroeconomic and scal stability, strengthens the underground, erodes the rule
of law and harms the reputation of trust in the state. As the World Bank summarises: “In
short, it increases wealth for the few at the expense of society as a whole, leaving the poor
suffering the harshest consequences” (World Bank 2013).
It is not invariably the case that corruption has only negative consequences,3 how-
ever, it is generally agreed that corruption is harmful in many different ways in the long-
run. Apart from the economic effects (as Mauro 1995, 1997; Rose-Ackerman 1999),4
the social and political consequences of corruption are increasingly a major aspect of
1 The organisations’ efforts include programs to encourage free and open trade, promote good
governance and transparency in government accounting and contracting, improve government
ethics, and eliminate the bribery of government ofcials by foreign businesses seeking contracts
(Collier 2002).
2 Philp (2009, p. 42) suggests the following denition of political corruption: “We can recognise
political corruption where: (1) a public ofcial (A), (2) in violation of the trust placed in him
by the public (B), (3) and in a manner which harms the public interest, (4) knowingly engages
in conduct which exploits the ofce for clear personal and private gain in a way which runs
contrary to the accepted rules and standards for the conduct of public ofce within the political
culture, (5) so as to benet a third party (C) by providing C with access to a good or service C
would not otherwise obtain.”
3 Some authors argue that in communist societies certain types of corruption were central for
the functioning of the system (e.g. Holmes 2000). Especially in countries with ineffective mar-
ket mechanisms and administrative structures, corruption is essential to avoid regulations and
accelerate long bureaucratic procedures. However, this “greasing the wheels” argument is con-
tested by numerous researchers (e.g. Méon and Sekkat 2005).
4 “Corruption discourages investment, limits economic growth, and alters the composition of
government spending, often to the detriment of future economic growth” (Mauro 1997, p. 3–4).
Similarly, Rose-Ackermann refers to some studies which veried a negative correlation between
corruption and foreign direct investments (Rose-Ackerman 1999). In addition, corruption leads
to a higher risk of nancial crises (Wei and Wu 2001).
3Corruption and trust: A model design
research (Della Porta 2000; Uslaner 2004; Richey 2010). Some studies conclude that high
degrees of political corruption foster low levels of trust in political institutions and even
erode general trust in the whole community (Miller and Listhaug 1999; Mishler and Rose
2001; Anderson and Tverdova 2003; Catterberg and Moreno 2005; Richey 2010; Morris
and Klesner 2010). This, in turn, may have perilous consequences for the legitimacy of a
political system, particularly for young democracies5 (Rose et al. 1998; Rose-Ackerman
1999; Tulchin and Espach 2000; Montinola and Jackman 2002; Seligson 2002; Chang
and Chu 2006). However, some authors claim that low levels of, in particular, political
trust offer an opportunity for the further development of democracies (e.g. Norris 1999;
Welzel 2007). So, Rosanvallon (2008) suggests that citizens are not just voters; they also
serve as quality controllers for the political systems. This raises numerous questions con-
cerning the relationship between political corruption and trust.
It is important to distinguish between two forms of trust: interpersonal trust6, which
means trust in other members of the society, and institutional trust7, which means trust in
political institutions, such as the government or political parties (Putnam 19938; Inglehart
and Welzel 2005). Empirical research shows a correlation linking the levels of two types
of trust, which are both a cause and a consequence of corruption. However, the distinc-
tion between the two types is not maintained consistently in analysis, which could lead to
incorrect conclusions. Thus, the question that matters is: is there a kind of model in which
political corruption mediates both forms of trust? Using a model could help to deal with
the problem of corruption.
The European states which have not yet been investigated in this context vary widely
according to the levels of trust and corruption. Hence, Europe serves as an excellent case
to study the trust-corruption relationship.9 New as well as established European democra-
cies have experienced episodes of government corruption over the years. It can be noted
that the level of political corruption is not much lower in Western democracies than in
post-communist societies: countries such as Greece (3.5), Italy (3.9), Portugal (6.0) or
Spain (6.1), have similarly low ratings on the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) as some
post-communist countries, such as Romania (3.7), Hungary (4.7), Slovenia (6.4) or Esto-
nia (6.5). Contrariwise, these countries contrast with European states whose CPI is very
5 Rose et al. (1998) claim in their study of Central and Eastern Europe that high levels of cor-
ruption negatively affected support for the democratic system and conversely increased the
acceptance for authoritarian alternatives.
6 Social or generalised trust are often used as synonyms for interpersonal trust (e.g. Rothstein and
Stolle 2002; Delhey and Newton 2003; Davis et al. 2004).
7 Political trust is often used as synonym for institutional trust (e.g. Mishler and Rose 2001; Cat-
terberg and Moreno 2005; Marien and Hooghe 2011).
8 For Putnam (1993) trust is a habit formed during a centuries-long history of “horizontal net-
works of association” between people, covering economic and civic activities. Rose-Ackerman
(2001) draws the same conclusion that interpersonal and institutional trust have deep cultural
and historical roots. It can be described as path dependency of trust. Therefore, good perfor-
mances of institution may increase trust between people and in institutions (La Porta et al.
1997).
9 The case selection is not theoretically guided. European countries which are members of the
European Union and provide useful data are systematically involved in the analysis.
4I. Kubbe
favourable (for example, Denmark (9.3), Sweden (9.2) or the Netherlands (8.8). The rea-
sons for this contradictory picture are still not resolved, because there is still relatively
little knowledge about the factors which determine the variance of the appearance of
corruption and the interaction of various factors in a systematic way. Based on data espe-
cially from Transparency International and the European Social Survey (ESS), the fol-
lowing analysis examines trust both as an antecedent and as a consequence of corruption.
The aim is to establish a general model of the causal links between trust and corruption
initially at the aggregate level. Furthermore, possible inuencing factors are to be anal-
ysed. Pooled country data and regression and path analyses are used to test the hypotheses
presented in this article.
2 Trust and Corruption
The political science literature offers different theoretical considerations and contradict-
ing empirical ndings on the relation between different forms of trust and corruption.
In 2004 Uslaner published an article that intensively investigated these variables and
claimed that even if they are opposite poles of the human being, the two are very strongly
related. His cross-sectional results show a reciprocal connection between these poles and
“that the effect of corruption on trust is greater than the opposite causal claim (trust begets
an honest political system)” (Uslaner 2004, p. 3).
Corruption is a very selsh and rational behaviour. “Corruption rests on a diametrically
opposed view of human nature: We rob because we value creature comforts” (Uslaner
2004, p. 4). In contrast, trust as a core element of social capital is a value expressing the
belief that others are part of your moral community. Yet, some scholars are more hesitant
to inject such a strongly moralistic interpretation into trust. Especially from a rational
choice point of view (Fukuyama 1995; Hardin 2002), trust is simply based on the expec-
tation that others behave predictably. Trust is about certainty of expectations10 and lays
the basis for cooperation with people who are not like oneself (Putnam 1993; Uslaner
2004). Trusting people are more inclined to have an optimistic view of the world in gen-
eral and their own ability to inuence their life and they are more satised with the way
it is (Rose-Ackerman 2001; Helliwell 2003; Uslaner 2002; Delhey and Newton 2003).
In contrast to corruption, trust correlates positively with a wide range of normatively
highly desirable variables. Trust seems to nurture what corruption destroys. At the indi-
vidual level, a comparably high level of trust causes individuals to have a positive view
of their democratic institutions, to be more involved in business and cultural groups, to
be more likely to volunteer in politics and in civic organisations, to make more charitable
contributions and to be more tolerant toward minorities (Rose-Ackerman 2001; Rothstein
and Uslaner 2005). Moreover, people who have faith in others are more likely to recom-
mend strong standards of moral and legal behaviour. Also, people who believe that the
legal system is fair and impartial are more likely to trust their fellow citizens (Rothstein
10 In fact, taking this perspective offers some of the best arguments why trust should be linked to
institutions, especially to institutions committed to impartial law enforcement: these are pre-
cisely the institutional features creating certainty of expectation.
5Corruption and trust: A model design
and Uslaner 2005). As a result, societies with more trust have better governance, better
living conditions, greater economic growth, and more open and efcient market econo-
mies. They spend more on redistribution, have greater respect for the law among the
citizenry and have less crime and corruption (for example Putnam 199311; Inglehart 1997;
Zak and Knack 2001; Uslaner 2004; Delhey and Newton 2003; Beugelsdijk et al. 2004;
Rothstein and Uslaner 2005; Richey 2010).
Among the empirical studies which analyse the relationship between corruption and
trust, especially Paldam and Svendsen (2001), Moreno (2002), Uslaner (2004) and You
(2005) conclude that a strong negative relationship between corruption and interpersonal
trust exists, which means that trusting societies have fewer people behaving corruptly.
Moreno, on the other hand, argues that such societies also tend to be more tolerant towards
corrupt practices. High levels of interpersonal trust support corruption because trust plays
an important role in the relationship between corrupt persons, who usually operate with
a high degree of interpersonal trust which is necessary to maintain their relationship12
(Della Porta 2000; Rose-Ackerman 2001). Similarly, studies by Seligson (1999)13 and
Davis et al. (2004) identify interpersonal trust as a signicant predictor of individual-level
perceptions of corruption in government. Davis et al. (2004) also conclude that those who
do not trust their fellow men are more likely to believe that the political system is corrupt.
Richey (2010) considers interpersonal trust as a possible consequence of corruption.
His study shows that increased corruption lowers generalised trust. “The panel data struc-
ture ensures that this research did not simply nd that people in more trustworthy areas
have less corruption. The results show that governmental corruption may make the soci-
ety seem untrustworthy.” This may help explain how institutional action inuences trust.
It suggests that people attribute the untrustworthy behaviour of politicians to people gen-
erally (Richey 2010, p. 687). Rothstein and Uslaner (2005) conclude that greater equality
and less corruption lead to more inclusive (universalistic) social welfare programs and to
a higher level of generalised trust.
11 For instance, Putnam (1993) argues that the independent city-states of Northern Italy encour-
aged the formation of such horizontal networks, in contrast to the more authoritarian political
regimes of the South. La Porta et al. conrm this argument and conclude that Italian local gov-
ernments perform better in high-trust regions because trust “enables individual bureaucrats to
cooperate better with each other and with private citizens, making government more effective”
(La Porta et al. 1997, p. 334).
12 “In all illegal systems of exchange, a high degree of trust and reciprocity is necessary among
participants, so the internalisation of some rules of the game is therefore necessary. A good repu-
tation for respecting the terms of the illegal exchange, which participants often call ‘honesty’,
is valued by the actors involved” (Della Porta 2000, p. 223). In opposition to this Rothstein and
Stolle note that: “The high degree of norm conformity that Della Porta depicts among those who
are involved in corruption may be plausible, but this is a specic type of trust relations, that can-
not be revealed to the outside world”. They claim that people involved in corruption need not
really trust one another. It is rather a situation of “mutual deterrence” (2002, p. 12).
13 Based on polls Seligson (1999) claries that the Nicaraguans feel corruption threatens the sys-
tem’s stability and their basic rights. Consequently, they have less pride in the political system
and less trust in other people.
6I. Kubbe
Examining 33 European countries Marien and Hooghe (2011) identify that a lack of
institutional trust can be a cause of deviant individual behaviour. Their results show that
people with low levels of institutional trust are signicantly more likely to break the law
than people with higher levels.
Other studies clarify the negative inuence of political corruption on institutional trust,
mainly caused by public scandals. The public has reacted to corruption by losing trust
in public ofcials (Pharr 2000; Catterberg and Moreno 2005; Chang and Chu 2006). In
his comparative analysis of Latin American countries Seligson (2002) considers corrup-
tion to be an important factor minimising the belief in the political system and thus the
legitimacy of democracy, interpersonal trust and social capital more generally. Schneider
(2001), selecting Latin-American executives and judiciary institutions for study, detects
only a minor correlation between the perception of corruption and trust in these institu-
tions. However, Mishler and Rose (2001) nd in a study of ten post-communist countries
that higher levels of corruption are related to lower levels of political trust. Della Porta
(2000), examining France, Germany and Italy, demonstrates that although corruption
leads to less trust in political institutions and parties it does not result in a general distrust
towards other citizens. Anderson and Tverdova (2003), examining sixteen established
and new democracies around the world, report similar results. They show that corrup-
tion affects people’s evaluations of their political system’s performance as well as the
credibility of civil servants in a signicantly negative manner. Catterberg and Moreno
(2005) analysing new and established democracies and Chang and Chu (2006) focussing
on Asian democracies also illustrate the fact that corruption reduces institutional trust
signicantly.
There is an increasing scepticism about the linkage between interpersonal and institu-
tional trust. Lane contends that there is a mutual relationship between interpersonal and
institutional trust because “trust in government ofcials may be a ‘specic instance of
trust in mankind’” (1959, p. 164, cited in Brehm and Rahn 1997, p. 1003). Brehm and
Rahn (1997) nd that trust in public institutions has a stronger effect on interpersonal
trust than vice versa. Levi (1998) and Rothstein and Stolle (2003) emphasise the role of
governments and political institutions in generating social trust. They can inspire con-
dence in the public only if citizens consider the state itself to be trustworthy. Empirical
research highlights the causal mechanism by asserting that particular practices of demo-
cratic governments are associated with trust (Putnam 1993, Inglehart 1997, Delhey and
Newton 2005). Particularly, in communist countries strong institutional trust often pre-
vailed over weak generalised trust (Mishler and Rose 2001). However, Rose-Ackerman
(2001, p. 531) claims that “trust in others does not necessarily translate into trust in gov-
ernment.” Similarly, Newton (2001) concludes that a strong relationship between inter-
personal and institutional trust does not exist. “It follows that social and political trust do
not have common origins in the same set of social conditions; they are different things
with different causes” (Newton 2001, p. 201). By contrast, Morris and Klesner (2010)
point out that trust in institutions has a large negative effect on generalised trust. Tavit’s
(2008) ndings provide strong evidence that governments can have a signicant impact
on people’s well-being. Examining the effect of corruption and representation on people’s
subjective well-being, he demonstrates that people report higher levels of subjective well-
being especially when their governments perform well (i.e., are not corrupt) and the party
7Corruption and trust: A model design
of their choice is in power. The effect of corruption overshadows that of macroeconomic
variables and conditions the effect of representation—having one’s party of choice in
power increases well-being when governments are clean but not when they are corrupt.
This literature review shows that a coherent theory explaining the connection between
trust and corruption is still lacking. The development of a model could be a further step
of describing the assumed interplay between these variables.
3 Hypotheses
Traditionally, the dominant view in the current scholarly debate considers lack of interper-
sonal trust as a cause and lack of institutional trust as a consequence of political corrup-
tion. This means that political corruption could appear as mediator between interpersonal
and institutional trust, which suggests the following causal model: Interpersonal trust
→ Political Corruption → Institutional trust. The hypothesis is that “Political
corruption mediates the relationship between interpersonal and institutional trust.” Even
though this supposition has been described rather implicitly in the literature, it has not
been tested empirically in a broadly comparative design.
The methods used to study mediation empirically have been challenged by quantitative
research and formally interpreted by Baron and Kenny (1986). The causal step method
developed by them is recommended to detect such a mediator model. The authors discuss
the different steps in establishing mediation, resulting in minor hypotheses which have to
be proved: to create a model even the interplay of interpersonal and institutional trust is
worth a closer look. Although Newton (2001) contests that there is no strong relationship
between the two, there are some studies claiming its existence (Brehm and Rahn 1997;
Rose-Ackerman 2001; Rothstein and Stolle 2003). This connection is to be analysed for
a set of 24 European countries. The case selection is, in particular, a result of data avail-
ability. Excluded states are either not considered by most data sources, such as Croatia,
Serbia and the Ukraine, or are outliers within the dataset.
Consequently, this leads to the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 1a: “Levels of interpersonal trust strongly determine trust in political ins
titutions.”
Initially, the interaction between corruption and interpersonal trust should be analysed.
Hypothesis 1b: “Levels of interpersonal trust strongly determine the degree of political
corruption.”
This assumed relationship has been conrmed for different regions of the world (e.g.
Seligson 1999; Davis et al. 2004; Chang and Chu 2006; Richey 2010). However, this
article analyses the European area for the rst time.
Based on different studies concerning the relationship between corruption and institu-
tional trust (e.g. Della Porta 2000; Mishler and Rose 2001; Seligson 2002; Anderson and
Tverdova 2003), it is assumed for all European countries that:
8I. Kubbe
Hypothesis 1c: “Levels of institutional trust strongly determine the degree of political
corruption while controlling the relationship between interpersonal and
institutional trust.”
The next step encompasses multiple regressions or path modelling: a correlation between
corruption and institutional trust is to be shown, while controlling the effect of inter-
personal trust on institutional trust. If all steps are met, then the data are consistent with
the basic hypothesis that corruption mediates the relationship between interpersonal and
institutional trust.
In a further step the data set is split into the Western and the countries of Central and
Eastern Europe (CEE) to compare the results and nd as well as discuss possible dif-
ferences between them. In a comparison of the Western and East European countries
concerning all hypotheses mentioned above, it is additionally expected that: “The rela-
tionships are weaker in CEE than in the Western countries.” This hypothesis is based
on the assumption that the civic nexus between trusting citizens and honest governance
needs time to evolve, in order for it to become stronger with the maturation of democ-
racies. In particular due to their communist past and the consequences of the political,
economic and social transformation, characterised as the “dilemma of simultaneousness”
(Offe 1991), it is supposed that these complex changes had negative effects on corruption
and on trust with other people and in the political institutions of CEE. On the one hand
some scholars claim that the legacy of the planned economy spawned a culture of corrup-
tion, which persists after the breakdown of communism. On the other hand, they posit that
the transition from a planned to a market economy has created a window of opportunity
for engaging in corrupt practices (Sandholtz and Taagepera 2005; Møller and Skaaning
2009). Sandholtz and Taagepera (2005, p. 110) argue that “the process of privatization
itself opened myriad opportunities for corruption, especially since the administrators of
the former system frequently devised and managed the privatization schemes.” These
circumstances may have reduced the two forms of trust, and suggest a stronger relation-
ship between the variables. The country reports of Freedom House point out: “entrenched
corruption remains a principal obstacle to democracy in transitional countries throughout
the world” (Freedom House 2013). Nevertheless, Holmes claims that “the crime and cor-
ruption situation has stabilized or even improved in most post-communist countries in
recent times” (Holmes 2009, p. 265).14
4 Data and Measures
Specically, the research design combines aggregate-level indicators of corruption and
interpersonal and institutional trust across 24 countries. The pooled data on trust are taken
from the European Social Survey which is especially designed to chart and explain atti-
tudes, beliefs and behaviours of different European societies and strive for optimal com-
parability and therefore validity and reliability in the data collected across the countries.
14 This improvement is explained by the role of external agents as the EU, the development from
transition to consolidation, and the role of political will.
9Corruption and trust: A model design
The pooled data on corruption are taken from Transparency International. European coun-
tries providing the most important variables for the analysis and a sufcient number of cases
for regression and path analyses included Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France,
Germany, Greece, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey and
the United Kingdom (West European countries) and Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia,
Hungary, Latvia, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia (Central and Eastern Europe).
4.1 Measuring Corruption
Political corruption, the dependent variable, cannot be measured directly. Corrupt trans-
actions are secretive by nature. They often take place in hidden, occult and unofcial
settings and all participants are highly interested in keeping them secret. Thus, objec-
tive measures such as criminal indictments only tend to indicate the effectiveness of the
judicial system rather than the actual level of the corruption in a country. However, in
recent years, several organisations15 have developed a perception-based corruption index
across a wide range of countries to quantify the pervasiveness of corruption. Transpar-
ency International has developed the Corruption Perception Index (CPI), one of the most
frequently used and reliable indicators of political corruption around the world.16 First
launched in 1995, the index is based on different surveys of the perception of business
people and country experts regarding corruption around the world and ranks countries on
a scale from ten to zero, according to the perceived level of corruption. Figure 1 illustrates
the distribution of the CPI across the European countries (2010) included in the analysis.
Corruption varies very widely across the different countries. In 2010, the average level
of corruption in the 24 European states was 6.4. The average corruption level in the West-
European countries was 7.3 (blue bars in Fig. 1); in Central and Eastern Europe the aver-
age score was 4.8 (green bars). This means that in the post-communist states the degree
of corruption was still higher than in Western Europe. However, the highest levels of
corruption in 2010 were found in Greece (3.5), followed by Bulgaria (3.7) and Romania
(3.7). The countries with the lowest levels of corruption were Denmark (9.3), Finland
and Sweden (9.2) followed by the Netherlands (8.8), Switzerland (8.7), Norway (8.6),
Germany (7.9), United Kingdom (7.6) and Belgium (7.1). Of the remaining countries, six
scored between six and seven (France, Slovenia, Estonia, Cyprus, Spain, and Portugal),
Poland between ve and six (5.3), and ve scored between four and ve (Latvia, Slova-
kia, Turkey, Czech Republic, and Hungary).
15 Another corruption index is the World Bank’s Control of Corruption index (CoC) which highly
correlates with the CPI. A great comparison of the CPI and CoC is offered by Treisman (2007).
16 The index is limited in a number of ways (see for example Urra 2007). First, it measures the per-
ception of corruption and not the actual level of corrupt activity. Therefore, the index includes
a high subjective evaluation. Second, it does not reect the activity of business people who
refrain from corrupt activities at home, but engage in them abroad. Third, it does not distinguish
between different forms of corruption such as (1) public (administrative) and political (state)
corruption and (2) petty and grand corruption. Despite its limitations, the CPI is widely used by
several researchers (e.g. Montinola and Jackman 2002; Tavits 2007; Møller and Skaaning 2009)
because of a lack of useful alternative measurements of political corruption.
10 I. Kubbe
4.2 Measuring Trust
In 24 European countries, representative national samples of the population were sur-
veyed in a face-to-face manner (ve waves between 2002 and 2010). In the European
Social Survey (ESS), the variable interpersonal trust was assessed by asking respondents
the following standard question: “Generally speaking, would you say that most people
can be trusted, or that you can’t be too careful in dealing with people? Please tell me on
a score of 0–10, where 0 means you can’t be too careful and 10 means that most people
can be trusted.”17 This is a standard measure of interpersonal trust which is often used by
researchers (e.g. Newton 2001; Seligson 2002; Richey 2010).
The ESS questionnaire included a battery of items to tap into people’s trust in different
institutions of a political system: trust in the country’s parliament, trust in the legal sys-
tem, trust in the police, trust in politicians, and trust in political parties. I created an index
of institutional trust by including these ve items of the battery, with low scores indicat-
ing low levels of institutional trust and high scores indicating high levels of trust.18 The
ve items load onto one factor and, therefore, they can be combined in a single measure.
This scale proves to be very reliable (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.973).
Figure 2 shows the distribution of these two variables across countries in 2008.
As in the case of corruption, the variation in the degrees of interpersonal and institu-
tional trust is quite strong in the European countries.
The average level of interpersonal trust in 2008 is 4.8 and the level of institutional trust
is 4.2. The average interpersonal trust level in the West European countries is 5.1 and the
institutional trust is 5.0. In the context of the Central and Eastern European countries the
17 For each society the average score was calculated. Another way might be to take the percentage
per country of the proportion of the people above a certain scale value.
18 Originally, the scale also captured trust in the European Union and the United Nations. These
institutions are not included because they do not belong to the national political system.
Fig. 1: Cross-national levels of corruption. (Source: Transparency International (2010))
11Corruption and trust: A model design
average interpersonal trust level is 4.2 and the institutional trust is 3.4. Hence, in post-
communist countries, compared to Western European countries, less interpersonal and
institutional trust exists.
The highest level of interpersonal trust was found in the Northern states, such as Den-
mark (6.9), Norway (6.6), Finland and Sweden (6.4), followed by the Netherlands (5.9),
Switzerland (5.7), Estonia (5.4), United Kingdom (5.3) and Belgium (5.1). Of the remain-
ing countries, 11 scored between 4 and 5 (Spain, Germany, Czech Republic, Cyprus,
France, Slovenia, Hungary, Poland, Latvia and Slovakia), four scored between three and
four (Greece, Romania, Portugal, and Bulgaria). The lowest level of interpersonal trust
could be found in Turkey (2.3).
The highest average level of institutional trust was observed in Denmark (6.5) and
Finland (6.2) followed by Norway (5.8), Switzerland (5.7), the Netherlands and Sweden
(5.6) and Cyprus (5.2).19 Nine countries scored between four and ve (Turkey, Germany,
Belgium, United Kingdom, France, Spain, Estonia, Slovenia, and Slovakia). Greece,
Romania, Portugal, Czech Republic and Poland gained values between three and four. Of
the remaining countries, three countries scored between two and three (Hungary, Latvia,
and Bulgaria). The country with the lowest level of institutional trust was Bulgaria (2.1).
19 The high levels of trust in the Northern countries are a common nding in research on political
culture and conrm the analysis of Delhey and Newton (2005) who partly link high levels of
trust with the ethnic homogeneity, Protestant religious traditions, good government, wealth and
income equality in these countries.
Fig. 2: Cross-national levels of interpersonal and institutional trust. (Source: European Social Survey (2008))
12 I. Kubbe
On average, interpersonal trust was almost always higher than institutional trust.
Exceptions are formed by Turkey, Cyprus and Slovakia, where institutions are trusted
although interpersonal trust is low. The comparative data clearly indicate that people in
the post-communist states trust less in other members of the society and in political insti-
tutions than people in the Western countries.
4.3 Control Variables
Previous research indicates that the level of democracy (e.g. Delhey 2002; Drury et al.
2006) and the legacies of the communist past (e.g. Miller et al. 2001; Møller and Skaan-
ing 2009) have a strong impact on political corruption; both therefore serve as control
variables. The level of democracy is measured by Freedom House and Polity20. The lega-
cies of the communist past are measured by a dummy variable. A number of scholars
argue that greater democracy can alleviate the level of corruption (e.g. Treisman 2000;
Paldam 2002; Drury et al. 2006; Billger and Goel 2009). The impact of the post-commu-
nist past on levels of corruption is relatively unclear due to the difculty in measurement.
Opinion polls show that people do not generally blame communism for today’s problems.
The level of corruption is mostly viewed either as a part of the moral crisis of transition
or as a result of the country’s culture (e.g. Hutchcroft 1997). Skaaning (2009, p. 226)
even assumes that “as culture only changes slowly, the corrupt traditions have arguably
survived the end of communist regimes. Communism is thus likely to have established
a negative legacy. New bureaucracies were not created from scratch, large extents of the
personnel carried over, and enterprises as well as private people in general had internal-
ized certain practices.”
5 Analysis and Results
The mediator analysis proceeds in a number of steps. Firstly, it was possible to conrm
the hypothesis “Levels of interpersonal trust strongly determine trust in political insti-
tutions.” (H1a). The correlation coefcient (0.84) shows a strong relationship between
the variables of the total samples. Additionally, the basic assumption can be regarded
as valid, as Western European countries (0.82) achieve a greater correlation coefcient
of interpersonal and institutional trust than the post-communist countries (0.70). This
implies that the hypothesis that “The relationships are weaker in CEE than in the Western
countries” gains preliminary verication.
20 This democracy scale ranges from 0 to 10, where 0 is least democratic and 10 most democratic.
The average of Freedom House is transformed into a scale from 0 to 10 and Polity is trans-
formed into a scale from 0 to 10, which is then averaged into a new variable of democracy. The
version has imputed values for countries where data on Polity is missing by regressing Polity on
the average Freedom House measure. Hadenius and Teorell (2005) show that this average index
performs better both in terms of validity and reliability than its constituent parts. Source of data:
Quality of Government Dataset.
13Corruption and trust: A model design
The coefcients of the following multivariate regression model conrm the results
(Table 1). When democracy and legacies of the past are controlled, the coefcients are
still signicant and show similar differences between both samples. Moreover, the degree
of democracy is another predictor of institutional trust in Western countries.
Correlation coefcients show a signicant relationship between corruption and inter-
personal trust (total sample). The correlation coefcient between interpersonal trust and
corruption is 0.85 (total sample), indicating that generally, more trusting societies tend to
have less corruption in Europe. The relationship runs from highly trusting societies with
relatively low corruption, like Denmark, Finland and Sweden, to generally distrusting
and highly corrupt societies like Romania and Bulgaria. There are no societies where both
interpersonal trust and corruption are low or high at the same time. This indicates that
corruption is strongly negatively related to interpersonal trust. In other words, the civic
nexus between trusting citizens and honest governance also exists in Europe. However,
splitting the sample, the Western states show an even stronger relationship between the
variables (0.87) than in CEE (0.53). As hypothesised, the civic nexus between trusting
citizens and honest governance is more strongly developed in more mature democracies.
The regression coefcients presented in Table 2 verify the assumed relationship between
corruption and interpersonal trust in general (total sample).
The correlation coefcient between institutional trust and corruption is 0.87 (total sam-
ple), indicating a similarly strong result as with interpersonal trust. It illustrates that soci-
eties with less corruption, and more honest governance for that matter, have more trust
Table 1: Regression of institutional and interpersonal trust
Institutional trust
(total sample)
Institutional trust
(Western countries)
Institutional trust
(Central and Eastern Europe)
Interpersonal trust 0.67*** (11.52) 0.98*** (15.00) 0.52** (3.41)
Democracy 0.56 (1.07) − 0.39*** (− 6.18) 0.27 (1.74)
Legacies − 0.29*** (− 5.26) 0.09 (1.58) (Omitted)
N113 73 34
Adjusted R20.73 0.78 0.47
Root MSE 0.58 0.39 0.49
T-statistics in parentheses
*p < 0.10, **p < 0.05, ***p < 0 .01
Table 2: Regression of corruption and interpersonal trust
Corruption
(total sample)
Corruption
(Western countries)
Corruption
(Central and Eastern Europe)
Interpersonal trust 0.62*** (15.86) 0.79*** (14.13) 0.54** (3.40)
Democracy 0.24*** (6.55) 0.15* (2.82) 0.01 (0.07)
Legacies − 0.28*** (− 7.66) 0.05 (0.99) (Omitted)
N146 97 43
Adjusted R20.84 0.78 0.26
Root MSE 0.79 0.68 86
T-statistics in parentheses
*p < 0.10, **p < 0.05, ***p< 0 .01
14 I. Kubbe
in political institutions. However, comparing the two samples does not show a stronger
effect for the Western countries (0.72) than the countries of CEE (0.72).
When interpersonal trust, democracy and legacies of the past are controlled, regres-
sion analysis shows that the suggested link between institutional trust and corruption only
exists in Central and Eastern Europe, but not in the Western part of Europe (Table 3).
It can be expected that the results verify the main hypothesis that political corrup-
tion mediates interpersonal and institutional trust for the total sample. This means that
interpersonal trust (the independent variable) affects institutional trust (the dependent
variable) indirectly via corruption (the mediator variable). However, this is more pro-
nouncedly the case for interpersonal trust in Western countries and for institutional trust
in the post-communist societies.
Complementary to analyses with the CPI, all calculations were conducted using the
Control of Corruption Index as an alternative measurement instrument. The results were
virtually identical and substantiate the reliability of both indices.
6 Discussion and Conclusion
Certain scholars grapple with the question of the relationship between trust and corrup-
tion, coming to different results. In this article, I have provided empirical results on the
interplay of corruption (as a mediator) and trust that are both cause and consequence of
corruption.
Firstly, the ndings of the analysis clearly demonstrate that corruption reduces both
interpersonal and institutional trust in Europe. This is in line with other recent contributions
which have demonstrated the negative effect of corruption on trust in Latin America and
Asia (e.g. Seligson 1999; Davis et al. 2004; Chang and Chu 2006; Richey 2010).
A comparison of the average levels of corruption and interpersonal and institutional
trust in Western and post-communist countries tell an unequivocal story. Firstly, although
corruption is still part of social norms in the former socialist planned economy due to
informal practices which are not likely to change overnight (Hutchcroft 1997; Holmes
2006; Skaaning 2009), there are countries in CEE which have improved their degrees of
corruption in recent years, such as Poland, Estonia or Slovenia, and there are countries in
Table 3: Regression of institutional trust and corruption
Institutional trust
(total sample)
Institutional trust
(Western countries)
Institutional trust
(Central and Eastern Europe)
Corruption 0.51*** (4.55) 0.01 (0.12) 0.65*** (6.40)
Interpersonal trust 0.36*** (4.22) 0.97*** (8.43) 0.13 (1.14)
Democracy − 0.07 (− 1.30) − 0.39*** (− 5.93) 0.31** (3.08)
Legacies − 0.13 (− 2.10) 0.09 (1.55) (Omitted)
N113 73 34
Adjusted R20.78 0.77 0.76
Root MSE 0.53 0.39 0.32
T-statistics in parentheses
*p < 0.10, **p < 0.05, ***p < 0 .01
15Corruption and trust: A model design
Western Europe which show signicantly worse corruption results, such as Spain, Greece
or Portugal.
Secondly, it is pointed out that low levels of interpersonal trust nurture corruption
(interpersonal trust as a cause). In turn, high levels of corruption can negatively inu-
ence people’s trust in political institutions (lack of institutional trust as a consequence).
These assumptions are conrmed but reveal differences between the two country sets.
These ndings also conrm the suggested link of the civic nexus with the maturation of
democracies.
Thirdly, it is concluded that there might be a causal model of corruption and trust,
including corruption as a mediator variable of interpersonal and institutional trust. For
the Western and Central and Eastern countries, this implies that increasing interpersonal
trust enhances institutional trust. This is especially the case when the degree of corruption
is minimised.
These results match previous studies claiming that the degree of corruption can be
inuenced by the level of interpersonal and institutional trust. Moreover, it is submitted
that there are still differences between the Western and Eastern countries including the
fact that the relationship between corruption and interpersonal trust is even stronger in
the Western countries, while the relationship between corruption and institutional trust is
stronger in CEE.
The results of the post-communist countries could indicate that good governance and
government performance can help improve the democratic situation and enhance citizens’
trust in political institutions. Citizens who perceive clean governments, higher levels of
fairness, satisfaction and brightening economic prospects show higher trust in institu-
tions. In a nutshell, governments can generate the condence of the public only if citi-
zens consider the state itself to be trustworthy (Levi 1998; Rothstein and Stolle 2003).
Consequently, corrupt actions in political contexts are of substantial relevance for regime
support, a fact which often seems to be ignored by political elites involved.
As with all research, this study has some limitations in design and interpretation.
Future research might take a multi-level approach to analysing the predictors and out-
comes of corruption and taking more account of the individual level. Moreover, working
with larger data samples (although this would require improved data availability) would
enhance the validity of the results. Moreover, trust could also be operationalised in a dif-
ferent manner. Delhey et al. (2011) claim that interpersonal (generalised) trust should be
further questioned by introducing a new battery of items which measure both in-group
and out-group trust. Obviously, this is also claimed for the measurement of corruption,
which is often criticised.
Naturally, further investigation is essential to better understand the factors determining
corruption directly and indirectly and corruption’s relationship with trust. Only a deeper
understanding of these critical factors can increase the prospects of success of interna-
tional efforts to curb political corruption.
16 I. Kubbe
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