Political distrust and right-wing populist party voting in Australia

ABSTRACT

While declining political trust has been given much attention, the behavioural implications of declining political trust have not yet been investigated extensively and the literature also shows the varying effects of political trust on support for extreme and populist parties across contexts. This article focuses on the decline of political trust in Australia from 1998 to 2016 and its effect on Australian voting behaviour. Multinomial logit estimations are performed using individual-level survey data from seven Australian federal elections. Our study provides evidence that political distrust can unite all successful right-wing populist parties and act as a moderating source to raise votes for right-wing populist parties in the elections. The study further demonstrates that right-wing populist parties can experience electoral success beyond mobilising anti-immigration sentiments.

政治信任的式微已引起很大的关注，但对其在行为上的影响尚未得到充分研究。文献显示，政治信任的问题对极端主义民粹政党获得支持有着不同的影响。本文聚焦于1998至2006年政治信任的衰退及其对澳大利亚选举行为的影响。笔者从澳大利亚七次联邦选举得到个人层面的调查数据，对之做了多项逻辑评估。根据这项研究，政治不信任可以团结起所有成功的右翼民粹政党，作为一种消杀因素在选举中提高对右翼民粹政党的支持。文章进一步指出，右翼民粹政党可以通过煽动反移民情绪而获得成功。

KEYWORDS:

• Political distrust
• vote choice
• right-wing populist parties
• anti-immigrant sentiments

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributors

Liang Jiang is Associate Professor of Political Behaviour in Jinan University. His research interests include political behaviour, election campaign, and political integration of migrants.

Xiangjun Ma is an Associate Professor of Economics at University of International Business and Economics. Her research interests include international economics, political economy, applied microeconomics, and regional migration.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the MOE Project of Key Research Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences at Universities [grant number 16JJD810006].