Citizens trust in international organisations

Abstract

This master thesis explores which factors determines individual-level trust in international organizations. By using data from the new World Value Survey 7, the citizens trust in the IMF and the UN is investigated in 44 countries. First, the established association between citizens national political trust and their trust in international organizations is explored. Second, the concept of ingroup-outgroup is used to created a new theoretical model to see whether ingroup-outgroup trust has a moderating effect or a direct effect on the established association. The results show that in close to one third of the countries, there is no association between citizens national political trust and their trust in the IMF and the UN. This challenge the theoretical model from the literature and encourage to look more into country specific aspects to explain these differences. The data showed that in more than one third of the countries, ingroup-outgroup trust has a direct effect on the association between citizens national political trust and their trust in the IMF and the UN. It means that the concept of ingroup-outgroup trust can be added as a new concept into the theoretical model that explores individual-level trust in international organizations.