Trust in regional and municipal politicians: a comparison of Denmark and Norway

In this paper, we explore and compare citizens’ trust in politicians at the municipal and regional levels in Denmark and Norway. While numerous studies pursue the question of trust in municipal councillors, less work has been done on citizens’ trust in regional councillors. Regarding differences between the two levels, we hypothesize that trust in regional councillors is lower than trust in municipal councillors in both countries, for two reasons. First, because municipalities are smaller than regions. Municipal councillors therefore interact more closely with their citizens. Second, because we expect trust to differ according to the relative importance of the two administrative levels for citizens’ everyday life. The municipalities play an important role in both Denmark and Norway, where they are responsible for providing a broad range of welfare services. In contrast, the role of the regional level is more limited, and there are political actors who want to abolish this level in both countries. Moreover, citizens in both countries are in general less interested in regional politics, compared with both municipal and national politics. Regarding the two countries, Norway and Denmark are much alike when it comes to local governance. However, there are also some important differences which can be exploited to study the potential municipal-regional gap in political trust. We expect trust in municipal councillors to be higher in Norway than in Denmark, as municipalities are smaller (in terms of population) in Norway than in Denmark. Regarding trust in regional councillors, our expectations are more uncertain. On the one hand, hospitals were transferred from the regions to the state in Norway, whereas hospitals remain the essential task of the Danish regions. In Denmark the regions remain unchanged since 2007 (although their future is debated) while in Norway the enforced amalgamation has caused protests and political conflicts leading to a split up of some of the merged regions already after only one electoral term. Therefore, trust in regional councillors in Denmark may be higher than in Norway – in Denmark, the regions deal with more important issues and their structure is more stable. On the other hand, also regions are larger (in terms of population) in Denmark than in Norway, which could point in the opposite direction with lower levels of trust in regional politicians in Denmark. Moreover, the recent conflict on regional mergers in Norway might have caused a more positive view on regions in Norway. When people fight to maintain their regions, they may look at their regional politicians in a more positive light. Based on unique comparative data from the 2021 Danish Local Election Study and the 2023 Norwegian Local Election Study, in which identical questions have been asked, we analyse these questions empirically.