Institutional Trust, Individualism, and Redistributive Attitudes in Asian Countries

Abstract: As income inequality increases worldwide and the role of governments in redistribution becomes increasingly important, governments are seeking to understand citizens' redistribution attitudes. With this in mind, this study analyzes the relationship between citizens' redistribution attitudes and trust in government using data from the fourth (2014–2016) and fifth (2018–2021) waves of the Asian Barometer Survey (15 countries and 37,305 samples). Additionally, we focus on individualism, a key element of global cultural change that has greatly influenced Asian regions, and investigate how individualistic attitudes moderate these relationships. Our results indicate that high government trust is associated with high redistributive preferences among citizens. However, individualistic attitudes lower redistributive preferences at any level of government trust. These findings suggest that the government must consider cultural traits, particularly the prevalence of individualistic attitudes in society and citizens' trust in the government, to successfully implement redistributive policies.