Consumer Markets' Trust Regimes across Europe

ABSTRACT

Given the importance of trust and confidence for the individual consumer's well-being and societies' overall consumer conditions, this paper intends to conceptualize, investigate and map European consumer markets' trust regimes. Based on statistics from DG Sanco's Consumer Condition Scoreboard 2012, trust dimensions in 29 European countries (EU27 + Norway and Iceland) are reanalyzed and compared. The material reveals large differences in consumer markets' trust regime levels across Europe. This paper suggests that one way people evaluate consumer market institutions, is by their perceptions of food and product safety. The concluding discussion gives attention to possible discrepancies between consumer markets' trust regimes and consumer institutions' trustworthiness.

Key words:

• trust regimes
• European consumer markets
• consumer choices
• trust and trustworthiness
• food-safety
• product safety

Notes

1. The Consumer Scoreboards consist of two series: (1) Consumer Conditions Scoreboards – the Commission's main tool to monitor the Single Market from a consumer perspective and (2) Consumer Markets Scoreboards, where 50 consumer areas are evaluated by consumers http://ec.europa.eu/consumers/consumer_researc/.

2. The RAPEX weekly overviews can be consulted at: ec.europa.eu/RAPEX.

3. Holm refers to food safety only. As shown in Figure 4 food safety and non-food products safety perceptions are strongly correlated.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Lisbet Berg

Lisbet Berg is senior researcher at the National Institute for Consumer Research in Oslo, working primarily with consumer conditions, consumers' reflected and non-reflected practices, consumer competences and consumer trust. She took her cand.sociol. degree at the University of Oslo in 1985, and was dr.polit in 1997, again from the University of Oslo.