Trust falls sharply in nations most hit by crisis
Print Edition
The financial crisis of the past few years has severely sapped confidence in government around the globe, a think-tank representing the world’s wealthiest economies said yesterday.
“In countries most hit by the crisis, the people have lost trust in their institutions to actually help them and solve their problems,” said Martine Durand, the chief statistician of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
In a report entitled “How’s Life? 2013,” the OECD said the percentage of people that trust national government fell in the United States from 50 percent in 2009 to 35 percent last year. The decline took place even before the partial shutdown of the US government.
Among the OECD’s euro constituency — 14 of the 17 European Union countries that use the euro are members of the OECD — the proportion trusting government fell from 49.1 to 42.8 percent over the same period. In Japan, that fell from 27 percent in 2010 to 17 percent last year.
If any country typifies the human cost of the financial crisis, it might well be Greece, which had to be bailed out to stave off bankruptcy at a high cost to employment, living standards and social services.
“In Greece, the percentage of people reporting that they trust the government fell from 38 percent to 13 percent,” said Durand. “So you can sort of see the distrust in institutions between 2007 and 2012.”
Bucking the trend was Britain, where people trusting government rose from 36 percent to 47 percent between 2007 and 2011.
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