Trust During Times of Political Unrest

Do extreme political reforms and subsequent political unrest influence trust among individuals in society? We explore this question through the case of Israel’s November 2022 elections, marked by a decisive right-wing victory and the subsequent push for radical judicial reforms, which sparked widespread protests throughout the country. Using an online incentivized survey of a large sample of the Israeli adult population, we compare transfers in the Trust Game in October 2022 (pre-election) to February-March 2023 (amid political unrest). First, we find a significant overall decline in the levels of trust in society. Furthermore, the relationship between loss of trust and support for the reforms follows a non-monotonic hump-shape: those strongly for or against the reforms show minimal change, while neutral individuals exhibit the largest decline in trust and trustworthiness. Upon closer examination, we find that prior to the events, individuals with neutral opinions exhibited higher levels of trust and trustworthiness compared to those with extreme views. However, following the radical reforms and amid widespread protests and unrest, their trust levels declined to match those of the extremists, while the trust levels of the extreme individuals dropped to a smaller extent. We propose a model that links trust to ideological proximity to account for these patterns. Central to our explanation is the idea that political tensions amplify ideological differences, drawing neutral individuals into the ideological conflicts and diminishing their trust in people across both ends of the spectrum. Meanwhile, individuals with strong ideological stances tend to generally exhibit low levels of trust toward ideologists from the opposing extreme, which is why increasing political tension has a lesser impact on them.

(joint with Amnon Maltz)

Moti Michaeli's homepage: https://sites.google.com/econ.haifa.ac.il/motimichaeli