Explaining Gaps in Context

This chapter assesses whether gaps in political support due to education, employment position and electoral status depend on changes and country differences in input and output contextual factors. Using hierarchical models with survey data on a set of European countries between 1995/2002 and 2017, it disentangles the role of power distribution, ideological distance, quality of government, economic performance and inequality for explaining between- and within-country variation in gaps, trying to understand under what conditions they are narrower or larger. The chapter not only provides a broad analysis of how the context may moderate the role of social and political experience in political satisfaction and trust, but it also attempts to contribute to our understanding of how people form opinions through information from the political context.