Urban Inequality and Political Trust : The impact of social exclusion on individual political trust across residential areas in Sweden

Abstract: Contextual effects have previously been shown to be related to political attitudes and behaviour. Focusing on the contextual effect of social exclusion, this paper evaluates whether individuals living in areas with higher levels of social exclusion tend to be less trusting of political institutions. Regression analysis was used based on data from the Swedish Citizen Survey 2003 and Small Areas for Market Statistics. The results showed no evidence for a relationship between social exclusion and political trust.