A new survey suggests people living under authoritarian regimes increasingly trust their major institutions more than citizens of democratic countries trust theirs, Axios reported Tuesday.
According to the 2022 Edelman Trust Barometer, which surveyed 35,000 respondents across 28 countries, trust in NGOs, business, government, and the media fell most sharply in Germany, Australia, the Netherlands, South Korea, and the United States since 2021.
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South Korean institutions scored a 42 in 2022. Institutions in the U.S. did only one point better.
Developed democracies, especially Western democracies, occupied most of the bottom two-thirds of the trust index rankings, but one authoritarian regime — Russia — finished dead last, with an average trust rating of only 32.
Those surveyed were asked, for each institution, to indicate on a nine-point scale "how much you trust that institution to do what is right."
The survey spanned 35,000 respondents across 28 countries via online interviews held between November 1-24, 2021. The margin of error is 2.9 percentage points.
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