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What are the political consequences of inequality in outcomes and inequality in opportunity? This paper examines the effect of perceived inequalities on trust in political institutions in Korea. We argue that citizens' perceptions of income inequality and inequality in opportunity have a trust-eroding effect. When citizens perceive that their government and political elites are responding to their demand for "a fair share," their political trust increases. Our analysis of the 2009 Korea General Social Survey finds that perceived income inequality has a negative effect on political trust among Korean citizens. We also find that perceived inequality in education and job opportunities further erodes citizens' trust in political institutions.
Key Words: Democracy, Governance, Inequality, Political Economy, Trust
I. Introduction
This paper examines the effect of perceived inequality on citizens' political trust in Korea.1 Despite the growing literature on the determinants of political trust, studies have seldom focused on how popular perceptions of the distribution of income in society influence trust in political institutions. The level of citizens' political trust is well known to have crucial consequences, including, but not limited to, political participation and regime legitimacy (Levi and Stoker, 2000; Newton and Norris, 2000; Park and Shin, 2005; Soit, 2008; Chu et al, 2009). When citizens have higher levels of political trust, they are more likely to hold the values that are deemed to be important for democratic governance, feel efficacious, and believe that their participation makes a difference (Uslaner, 2008; Jamal and Nooruddin, 2010).
How do citizens' perceptions of inequality influence their levels of trust in political institutions? In this paper, we argue that citizens' perceptions of inequality have a trust-eroding effect. Importantly, post-tax and post-transfer income inequality represents government efforts to rectify inegalitarian distributive outcomes from the market. When citizens perceive that their government and political elites are responding to their demand for "a fair share," their sense of political efficacy increases. In turn, increasing political efficacy leads to higher levels of trust in political institutions. Equality in the distribution of resources and equality of opportunity generate trust among citizens (Rothstein, 2005; Rothstein and Uslaner, 2005). From their perspective, what matters is how the government responds to and rectifies inegalitarian outcomes. Interestingly, countries that are more egalitarian show higher levels of generalized...