The Influence of Public Corruption and Human Values on Trust in the Police: A European Cross-National Perspective

Authors

  • Sabrina Pfister Institute of Sociology University of Zurich, Switzerland

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18523/kmlpj189993.2019-5.119-140

Keywords:

Trust in the Police, CPI, Human Values, ESS, Multilevel analysis

Abstract

Police forces are an important part of every democratic system and depend on societal legitimacy to perform their duties. Societal legitimacy stems from compliance with binding principles, like human rights and national law, and from broad acceptance from the people. Accordingly, police forces need the public’s trust to perform their duties in today’s European democracies. This paper investigates trust in police forces based on individual and contextual factors found in European countries. To explain trust in police forces, this paper uses human values on an individual level as well as perceived public-sector corruptionon a macro level. The analysis is based on data from the European Social Survey 2016 (ESS) and the Corruption Perception Index 2015 (CPI). It combines individual and contextual factors using multilevel models to explore differing levels of trust in police forces as well as the dynamics between perceived public-sector corruption, human values, and trust in the police. The results confirm previous findings that trust in police forces erodes in the face of perceived public-sector corruption, while human values play a sub-ordered role in the explanation of trust in the police in European countries.

Author Biography

Sabrina Pfister, Institute of Sociology University of Zurich

Sociologist and senior project leader at the LINK institution. She is a PhD candidate at the Institute of Sociology of University of Zurich, Switzerland. The aim of her dissertation is to gain a better understanding of the different trust relationships in Switzerland, Europe and the world. The influence of corruption at the country level is complemented by individual explanatory variables, mainly human values and migration background. For the analyses mainly structural equation models and multi-level analyses are used. Furthermore, her research focuses on issues such as trust in institutions, corruption and female leadership.

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How to Cite

Pfister, S. (2019). The Influence of Public Corruption and Human Values on Trust in the Police: A European Cross-National Perspective. Kyiv-Mohyla Law and Politics Journal, (5), 119–140. https://doi.org/10.18523/kmlpj189993.2019-5.119-140

Issue

No. 5 (2019): Legal and Political Challenges of Anticorruption Activities

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Articles

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