Interest through social involvement : the impact of social trust and collective identification on political interest

Iglič, Hajdeja (author), Van Rossem, Ronan (author)

Political interest is the basis for an individual’s informed and consistent engagement with politics, making it essential to understand its origins. In this article we focus on a largely understudied factor: social involvement, which is conceptualized in terms of social trust and collective identification, both reflecting individuals’ attachment to others. The primary aim is to explore the causal mechanisms through which social involvement shapes political interest. We propose three explanatory mechanisms formulated in terms of social empathy, common good, and political efficacy. Drawing on data from the 2017 European Values Survey, our analysis provides robust empirical support for the common good and empathy mechanisms. The findings suggest that social trust and collective identification enhance political interest by reinforcing the perceived value and significance of political involvement. The efficacy argument, however, received no support. Overall, the results underscore the significant role of trust in unfamiliar others and cosmopolitan identification.

• Language: English
• Keywords: political interest, importance of politics, social involvement, social trust, collective identification
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: FDV - Faculty of Social Sciences
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2025
• Number of pages: Str. 376–402
• Numbering: Vol. 55, no. 5
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-179413
• UDC: 323.2
• ISSN on article: 0020-7659
• DOI: 10.1080/00207659.2025.2545684
• COBISS.SI-ID: 268339715
• Publication date in RUL: 13.02.2026

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: International journal of sociology
• Shortened title: Int. j. sociol.
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• ISSN: 0020-7659
• COBISS.SI-ID: 16396381

Licences

• License: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
• Description: The most restrictive Creative Commons license. This only allows people to download and share the work for no commercial gain and for no other purposes.

Projects

• Funder: ARIS - Slovenian Research and Innovation Agency
• Project number: P5-0166
• Name: Upravljanje omrežij javnega in zasebnega sektorja