Migrants’ political trust: how exposure and exclusion in origin and residence country explain differences

Previous studies often treat migrants as a homogenous group compared to the native majority population or investigate the largest groups of migrants, overlooking diversity among migrants in (political) outcomes. Additionally, it is unclear what role different contexts play in shaping these diverse experiences of political trust. As being a migrant is, by definition, a context-dependent construction, this contribution unpacks how both origin and residence countries relate to diversity in migrants’ political trust. Combining insights from sociological and political science literatures, we test a framework that theorizes how exposure and exclusion to political institutions in origin and residence countries – such as a difference in political regime and anti-immigrant political rhetoric– relates to migrants’ political trust. Using cross-classified multilevel regressions on World Values Survey 2017–2022 data covering countries across the Global North and South, we find that migrants who move to more democratic regimes show more political trust. However, boundaries such as anti-immigrant political rhetoric in the residence country do not affect the political trust of migrants in general. Rather, our results suggest that exclusion through boundaries may affect the political trust of particular migrants in specific contexts. This implies that exposure indeed associates with political trust and that boundaries only become hurdles to trust for particular groups in some countries.