Social trust and political protestthe mediating role of the value of Power Distance

Résumé

While the study of Social Trust has per-tained to the analysis of Social Capital, the study of political protest has been related to social movements and political participa-tion. Both groups of theories need to be complemented with the analysis of the rela-tionship between Social Trust and political protest. Moreover, in spite of the impor-tance of the social values at a cross-cultural level, little work has been directed towards analyzing the mediating role of Power Dis-tance on the relationship between Social Trust and political protest. A research pro-ject was conducted with WVS (World Val-ues Survey 1995-8) relating means of So-cial Trust and Political Protest with a na-tions' socio-economic development (Human Development Index), democratic develop-ment (Freedom House index) and Power Distance. Results show that 1) the relation-ship between Social Trust and political pro-test is reciprocal; 2) the cultural value of Power Distance adds explanatory power to the relationship; and 3) Power Distance mediates on the relationship, showing the importance of the cultural dimension to both Social Trust and political protest.