Political trust, information and acceptance of ...

THIS MANUSCRIPT WAS PUBLISHED AS: Trüdinger, E. M., & Steckermeier, L. C. (2017). Trusting and controlling? Political trust, information and acceptance of surveillance policies: The case of Germany. Government Information Quarterly, 34(3), 421-433.

Trusting and controlling? Political trust, information and acceptance of surveillance policies: The case of Germany Eva-Maria Trüdingera,⁎, Leonie C. Steckermeierb a Institute b Institute

for Social Sciences, University of Stuttgart, Breitscheidstr. 2, 70174 Stuttgart, Germany for Social Sciences, Otto-von-Guericke-University Magdeburg, Zschokkestr. 32, 39104 Magdeburg, Germany

ARTICLE I NFO

ABSTRACT

Keywords: Surveillance Public opinion Political trust Information Germany

Supporting surveillance policies is a risky proposition in the sense that people are uncertain about the consequences of these policies. We argue that political trust serves as a mechanism to reduce uncertainty in circumstances where civil liberties are in jeopardy. Building on different theoretical perspectives, we examined whether trust is more relevant to the acceptance of surveillance policies for citizens with high or low levels of information about those policies. Using survey data from a German research project on surveillance, we estimated the effects of political trust and policy-specific information on acceptance of surveillance. Whereas political trust fostered the acceptance of these policies, information about surveillance alone did not affect the acceptance of surveillance in any way. Estimating the interaction between political trust and policy-specific information showed that political trust was particularly important for surveillance policy evaluations of well- informed citizens. Thus, we did not find evidence that individuals compensated for informational constraints by relying on political trust.

1. Introduction In recent years, several countries have passed legislation author- izing the conduct of surveillance as a reaction to fatal terrorist attacks. Examples are the Patriot Act in the US in 2001 and the new anti-terror laws passed in France in 2014. After the tragic terrorist attacks in Paris in 2015 and in Brussels and Berlin in 2016, not only secret services called for increased surveillance. In a broad sense, surveillance can be understood as any one-sided systematic, routine monitoring of individuals or groups for a given purpose (Jenkins, 2014, p. 162; Lyon, 2014, p. 2; Monahan, 2011, p. 498). Surveillance policies are strategic measures by state authorities to gather information (see Marx, 2015 for a conceptual discussion). Today, they often imply the use of new technologies. Examples of surveillance policies include the introduction of biometric data into passports, the retention of telecommunications, or the gathering and evaluation of passengers' data. These policies are justified for the purpose of accomplishing the governmental goals of ensuring public order and safety for the people from crime, violence and other threats. However, even if surveillance measures appear justified from a societal perspective, such measures may limit individual civil rights “as the individuals do not have the possibility to control and regulate the access to their monitored personal information” (Taddicken, 2012, p. 257). To

⁎ Corresponding

study surveillance policies is particularly important at a time when big data allows for more intensive surveillance and when these policies are requested as a means to fight against terrorism. The findings of Edward Snowden and other reports on extended surveillance programs revealed the extent to which a government's methods of maintaining security might challenge individual liberties (Davis & Silver, 2004, p. 29). Regarding the issue of legitimacy, the question of public approval of these policies is crucial, especially where individual civil rights are at stake. Against this backdrop it is surprising “that the views of citizens on government surveillance have not been thoroughly investigated” (Reddick, Chatfield, & Jaramillo, 2015, p. 129). Surveillance policies imply influence and control as well as personal vulnerability (Lyon, 2001). They pose uncertainty and risk as people may be confronted with restrictions on liberties. In these circumstances political trust as the expectation that political actors will not misuse their power (Gamson, 1968) may lead to a greater acceptance of these policies: trusting people “have faith in the authorities' ability to ensure that things do not get out of hand” (Davis, 2007, p. 69). Some authors have examined this relationship (e.g., Davis & Silver, 2004), but we know little about the conditions in which political trust influences citizens' attitudes towards surveillance policy. With regard to different welfare state policies, it has been shown that individual conditions of sacrifice moderate the influence of political trust on the

author. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (E.-M. Trüdinger), [email protected] (L.C. Steckermeier).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.giq.2017.07.003 Received 29 December 2016; Received in revised form 24 July 2017; Accepted 26 July 2017 0740-624X/ © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

evaluation of policies (e.g., Hetherington, 2006). However, to the best of our knowledge, it has not yet been investigated how policy-relevant information conditions the influence of political trust on policy evaluations. This study takes up the theme of trust and examines how political trust influences the acceptance of surveillance policies. It extends previous research in presenting results on the manner in which conditions of information or ignorance affect the consequences of political trust. The following research questions are at the core of this study: Does political trust encourage the support of governmental surveillance measures? Does the influence of political trust on acceptance of surveillance measures depend on the level of information an individual holds about such surveillance? Survey data from Germany were available for this study. It en- ables us to analyze these relationships in a country with relatively high levels of political trust and a particular history of surveillance among citizens who have lived in the former German Democratic Republic (GDR). The approach of this article was taken for several reasons. First, it is particularly relevant to know how political trust shapes the acceptance of policies which imply a degree of uncertainty and ignorance. Uncertainties about the consequences of policies often occur and are not limited to government activities in the field of surveillance. Second, it is important to understand the consequences of the interaction between (dis-)trust and (mis-)information for policy acceptance as not only levels of trust but also sources (i.e., social media) and levels of citizens' information on political issues vary widely today. On the one hand, it is argued that low levels of trust make it more difficult for authorities to govern a society. On the other hand, distrusting citizens might be more effective controllers of governmental decisions and improve democratic government (e.g., Marien & Hooghe, 2011, p. 268–269) as they are more critical of new policies. In both cases citizens' levels of information might affect the importance of trust for the support of policies. For instance, political trust might only be relevant if people are aware of the details of governmental decisions. Third, findings on the interaction of political trust and information improve our understanding of the concept of trust, for current theoretical discussions generally only question how uncertainty affects relationships of trust. The article is organized as follows: Sections 2 and 3 provide theoretical arguments and hypotheses on the consequences of political trust. Section 4 presents an overview of the data and operationalization of the variables included in our analyses. After the presentation of the empirical results in Section 5, the conclusion offers a discussion of our findings and suggests areas for future research.

(Gabriel & Trüdinger, 2011; Tyler, 1998). Whereas many studies have been conducted on the factors giving rise to political trust, the implications of trust or distrust for policy attitudes have received less attention. A few studies point to the positive effects of political trust on compliance with tax laws or on support for law compliance (e.g., Marien & Hooghe, 2011; Scholz & Lubell, 1998). Several authors focus on the influence of trust on attitudes towards welfare state policies. They stress the meaning of political trust for the support of governmental expenditure, of welfare state reforms, or of particular welfare state programs (e.g., Gabriel & Trüdinger, 2011; Hetherington, 2006; Rudolph & Evans, 2005; Svallfors, 2002). With respect to anti-terror policies in general or surveillance policies in particular, political trust may equally play a crucial role for various reasons. In general, it can be understood as a resource used to cope with situations of uncertainty (Misztal, 1996, p. 18). Policies in different domains can create situations of uncertainty as citizens might face hitherto unknown binding decisions—even if the underlying pro- cesses, relevant actors and aims differ between policy domains such as welfare and surveillance. In this perspective, political trust can serve as a heuristic “when the policy or action involves uncertainty and risk because citizens are more reliant upon government assurances about the future” (Rudolph & Popp, 2009, p. 336). However, the uncertainties arising from surveillance policies differ from the kind of uncertainties created by policies in other domains such as welfare, and that might have an impact on the role of trust. For instance, while uncertainties arising from welfare state policies are often related to material losses or gains (e.g., higher or lower pension levels), uncertainties arising from surveillance policies can be described as follows: surveillance implies a potential for influence and control on the part of the actor exercising surveillance and vulnerability for those who are the target of the surveillance or for those who perceive the risk of being under surveillance (Lyon, 2001). Supporting surveillance policies is a risky proposition in the sense that people may be uncertain about their intended positive consequences (collective and personal safety) and potential negative implications (restrictions of liberties). In particular, political trust may be important if the policies in question jeopardize civil liberties: these liberties are intended to protect individuals from unwarranted governmental interference. As Davis and Silver (2004, p. 30) put it, “if the willingness to exchange civil liberties for security translates into a concession of power to government, then trust and confidence in government should take on great importance”. When the consequences of political trust for the acceptance of surveillance policies are assessed, it is important to discuss the relevance of different objects of trust. While many authors focus on trust in a broad set of political institutions, we focus on trust in the legislative power, the judiciary, and the executive power for the following reason: trust in government seems to play a crucial role for the acceptance of surveillance as this state activity might be perceived as excessive governmental interference (see above). However, decisions by courts and the exercise of authority by the police shape domestic security policies such as surveillance. Thus, the police and the legal system are key institutions in assuring this field of state activity. These implementing institutions are expected to be impartial and to represent the rule of law (e.g., Marien, 2011; Rothstein & Stolle, 2008). A violation of these ex- pectations might have severe consequences for the acceptance of surveillance. There have only been a few studies on the influence of political trust on anti-terrorism and surveillance policies. Rykkja, Lægreid, and Fimreite (2011) analyzed the influence of social trust, trust in government, and political efficacy, on support for anti-terrorism measures but produced contradictory results. Whereas they found that high levels of social trust fostered skeptical attitudes towards the use of strong measures, they did not, in the multivariate model, find that trust in government had significant effects on such attitudes. Davis and Silver (2004) showed that the more people trust in government and law enforcement, the greater their willingness to trade off

2. Theoretical arguments on the consequences of political trust Trusting people are confident that they will not suffer damage or may even achieve a positive return from a relationship of trust. The willingness to trust can be attributable to several impulses, which have been summarized by Misztal (1996, p. 21): “motivation to trust seems to be a result of either strong positive personal bonds or affects for the object of trust, or a result of our belief that we have 'good rational reasons' […] to trust, or a result of our belief that trust enhances our interests or, more often, a result of a combination of all”. Fundamentally, political trust connotes the expectation that political actors will not misuse their power, even if they are not being constantly scrutinized (Gamson, 1968). According to Levi (1997, p. 21), “the more trustworthy citizens perceive government to be, the more likely they are to contingently consent to its policies”. Thus, political trust is a resource to be used by the authorities to make and implement binding decisions. A reserve of support such as political trust helps governments to implement authoritative decisions even if not all de- mands are satisfied (Easton, 1957, p. 385, 396). From the citizens' perspective, trust facilitates consent to governmental decisions, even if their consequences are perceived as risky or disadvantageous

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p. 969), “trust is a functional alternative to rational prediction for the reduction of complexity”. Second, one interpretation of the concept emphasizes that trust can be used without particular cognitive pre- requisites, as a simple and effective shortcut. Accordingly, the following alternative hypothesis can be worded:

civil liberties for security policy measures (see also Davis, 2007). Denemark (2012), in his analysis of six countries, found evidence of political trust fostering support for anti-terrorism policies. According to Pavone and Degli Esposti (2012, p. 566), a more trusting attitude led citizens to believe that surveillance-oriented security technologies were “an effective solution to enhance security without infringing privacy”. Nakhaie and de Lint (2013) found that trust in government fed support for surveillance policies. However, they used a narrow measure of trust, defined as trust in the capacity of the government to find a balance between national security and individual rights. Although the results of these studies are not consistent, they tend to support the idea that political trust positively influences the acceptance of surveillance policies. Accordingly, we expect: H1. An individual's level of political trust increases acceptance of governmental surveillance measures.

his

H2a. The lower an individual's level of information about governmental surveillance measures is, the greater the influence of his/her level of political trust will be on his/her acceptance of such measures. Alternatively, political trust may be of particular importance where people have substantial information about surveillance policies. Several scholars who studied trust provided support for the assumption that the influence of political trust on acceptance of surveillance policies increases with levels of related information. They argued that a minimum of knowledge about the attitude object was a prerequisite for trust. According to Lewis and Weigert (1985, p. 970), there is no reason to trust in the case of absolute ignorance. Or, to put it differently, accu- mulated information facilitates predictions which are central to the use of trust. Thus, a cognitive-based perspective is present in discussions concerning the relationships between information and trust, but it can also be transferred to analyses of the role of trust for policy attitudes. In the case of surveillance measures, well-informed citizens perceive the uncertainties arising from these policies more clearly as an awareness of the positive and negative consequences of policies is one aspect of policyspecific information. That being said, well-informed citizens may be more likely to perceive an information asymmetry related to the presence of governmental surveillance. This asymmetry implies that individuals do not have an overview of the effective implementation of surveillance policies and that they are uncertain about the risks arising from such surveillance (Dinev, Hart, & Mullen, 2008, p. 220). People may rely on political trust to cope with this uncertainty. In particular, well-informed citizens may be more susceptible to perceiving a risk of individual liberties being jeopardized or violated. They know that surveillance policies are about the government's use of power. Consequently, belief in the good intentions of government gains importance when such policies are evaluated by people who have information on the issues to which the policies relate (Hetherington & Husser, 2012). Based on these considerations, we expect the following effects:

or her

3. The effects of political trust in conditions of information and ignorance Research has long recognized the importance of individual information about politics as a factor influencing the organization of individual political beliefs and response styles. Studies have shown that political information or awareness influences the way people think about an issue. It affects both the number and nature of considerations people have about the subject (e.g., Zaller, 1992). While recent research has shown that the influence of political trust on policy attitudes varies depending on material or ideological conditions (e.g., Hetherington, 2006; Hetherington & Husser, 2012; Rudolph, 2009), little is known about how information could affect the influence of political trust on policy attitudes. Although the importance of trust in situations of uncertainty, missing information and risk is being stressed by many scholars, existing studies focus on the relationship between trust and knowledge (e.g., Cook, Jacobs, & Kim, 2010) and not on the effects on other attitudes. In our case, political trust might become more or less relevant to evaluations of surveillance policies if citizens are informed about these policies. On the one hand, when citizens know little about surveillance policies, their support for these policies might rely on whether they trust or distrust the institutions that design, evaluate and execute them. On the other hand, citizens might need a basic knowledge about surveillance policies on which to base a judgement of trust or distrust—only then does their level of trust become relevant to their support of these policies. Whereas in the first case information is sub- stituted by trust, in the second information functions as the condition for effects of trust or distrust. Both propositions are plausible and can be justified theoretically. First, political trust may be of particular importance when people know little about the policies they evaluate. In this case, uncertainties related to these policies are high. Most citizens fall short of being well- informed about political matters, and people will rarely be able to assess the consequences of policies on their lives. In an information va- cuum, the use of trust as a heuristic might compensate for a lack of knowledge and information. People might rely on political trust as a “decision rule for supporting or rejecting government activity” (Hetherington, 2006, p. 51). When citizens know little about the surveillance measures in place, the repercussions of surveillance tend to be particularly uncertain. In these conditions, it is probable that the trust heuristic will be activated. In short, individuals may compensate for informational constraints by relying on political trust (Shambaugh, 2013, p. 23). This argument finds support in the literature on trust in two ways. First, trust has been seen, in the tradition of Luhmann (1989), as a mechanism for reducing complexity. The use of trust eliminates the costs of control and information. Or, to quote Lewis and Weigert (1985,

H2b. The higher an individual's level of information about governmental surveillance measures is, the greater the influence of his/her level of political trust will be on his/her acceptance of such measures.

4. Data and methods 4.1. Data We use data from a representative telephone survey conducted between October 5 and November 30, 2009 by infas. The survey was part of a research project entitled “The transparent citizen between apathy and resistance – the genesis of new governmental surveillance technologies and their effects on attitudes and behavior of the population” (see our acknowledgements). We will therefore refer to the survey as “Surveillance Survey, 2009” when indicating the data source of our models. The survey comprises data from 2.176 CATI interviews. It at- tained a response rate of 22% (AAPOR, 2011, RR 1), which is in the usual range of response rates of RDD surveys in Germany conducted in the last years. The target population consisted of persons aged 18 and older living in private households with landline connections in Ger- many (e.g. Lüdemann & Schlepper, 2011). In a twostage probability design, randomly generated telephone numbers were selected with a

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probability proportional to the number of households in regional dis- tricts.1 The target person was randomly selected from the household by means of the last-birthday method. A weight variable was used in the analysis to balance design-related differences in the selection prob- abilities and to adjust for an unbalanced response. The weight variable is based on information about household size, age, gender, and distribution of the population in federal states.

by > 50% of the population in Germany and the police by close to 70%, only 40% of the population trusted the federal government. The sub- sequent analyses will show whether institutional differences affected the relationship between political trust and acceptance of surveillance policies. 4.4. Policy-specific information As previous research has shown, it is theoretically relevant and empirically useful to differentiate between a general and a policy-specific dimension of political knowledge (e.g., Barabas, Jerit, Pollock, & Rainey, 2014, p. 840) or levels of information. In our study, we focused on policy-specific information as it may well play a larger role in individual decisions on policies than general knowledge about politics (Gilens, 2001, p. 380). Our dataset contains questions on policy- specific information that sought to establish whether respondents had ever heard about the seven different surveillance measures relevant for the construction of the dependent variable. This measurement of information does not consider the level of information and is therefore limited. Notwithstanding, similar measures of information have been used effectively in the evaluation of the legitimacy and trustworthiness of European institutions (Caldeira & Gibson, 1997; Ehrmann, Soudan, & Stracca, 2013; Kaltenthaler, Anderson, & Miller, 2010). The questions were asked before respondents had to evaluate these measures. As all seven questions load on one single factor (eigenvalue of 1.8, Cronbach's alpha of 0.52) and reflect the degree of awareness of those surveillance measures merged into the dependent variable, we combined them into one additive index of policy-specific information.

4.2. Acceptance of surveillance policies During the survey, respondents were asked to evaluate seven governmental surveillance measures aimed at combating crime and terrorism in Germany. These measures were in force during the study. The following measures were rated: the introduction of biometric data into passports and identity cards, granting authorities online access to digital images of suspects, granting authorities online access to bank records of suspects, retention of telecommunications data,2 conducting searches of personal computers of suspects, having an anti-terror database, and gathering passengers' data and transferring them to the federal police. More detailed information on the variables used in this study and on the question wording can be found in the Appendix A (Tables A1 and A2). Three of our seven surveillance measures may affect everyone—identity cards or passports with biometric data, retention of telecommunications data, and gathering of passengers' data—- while the remaining four specifically concern suspects. To test whether this would distort a combined measure of surveillance evaluation, we checked the dimensionality of the surveillance items. A principal component analysis3 showed the one-dimensionality of the different evaluations (eigenvalue of 3.5, 50% explained variance). We therefore combined all seven measures to an additive index of acceptance of surveillance measures, with a reliability of Cronbach's α of 0.83.

4.5. Other factors Apart from these variables, our explanatory models were supplemented by additional factors discussed in previous studies on political trust and on attitudes towards surveillance or anti-terrorism policies. Variables that might affect both political trust and our dependent variables are of particular interest here. More information on these variables is reported in the Appendix A. Many scholars have argued that perceived threat drives people to support government surveillance and security policies. In these circumstances, individuals may support more resolute government action to fight against potential sources of threat (e.g., Huddy, Feldman, Taber, & Lahav, 2005; Leese, 2013). Acceptance of surveillance policies may also be related to the perception of other types of threat such as threat from crime, etc. Additionally, perceived threat might lead to higher levels of trust in authorities (e.g., Merolla & Zechmeister, 2009). To control for the influence of feelings of threat, we used an index of fear of crime and terrorism, based on four variables. Respondents in- dicated how afraid they were of becoming a victim of a theft, a burglary, an assault, or a terrorist attack in Germany. A principal component analysis showed the one-dimensionality of the different fears (eigenvalue: 2.7, 68% explained variance). The scale was reliable with Cronbach's α of 0.84. Social trust could be expected to have a positive impact on political trust and a negative effect on people's willingness to accept surveillance policies. Trusting people do not feel a need to support policies aimed at controlling potential misbehavior as they do not expect other people to harm them (e.g., Davis & Silver, 2004, p. 31). It is even possible that orientations towards fellow citizens are more relevant than a generalized judgement on government when surveillance measures are assessed. Thus, we added a measure of social trust to our model, indicating how respondents evaluated the statement that most people can be trusted. We equally controlled for the influence of punitive attitudes. Such attitudes express judgements on an adequate punishment for non- compliance with norms, and are closely related to one dimension of authoritarianism and to an individual's endorsement of law-and-order

4.3. Political trust Our measure of political trust was based on a question designed to determine whether people trusted three different institutions—the federal government, the legal system, and the police. They were combined with an additive index, and the reliability of this measure was good with a Cronbach's α of 0.70, thus supporting the idea that trust in a set of particular institutions is a general orientation towards the political system (Marien, 2011, p. 17). The government, reflecting existing majorities in parliament, can be considered as a representational institution. It is involved in political conflicts and required to be a partisan actor (Rothstein & Stolle, 2008, p. 444). The legal system and the police are administrative institutions serving as guardians of the rule of law. They are expected to maintain order and resolve conflicts. In line with these considerations, the data show that these administrative institutions are trusted to a greater degree than the government. Whereas the legal system was trusted 1 In 2009, 90% of all German households, yet only 80% of households under the age of 35, were equipped with a landline phone (Behrends & Kott, 2009, pp. 9–10). Keeter, Kennedy, Clark, Tompson, and Mokrzycki (2007) find that estimates based on samples including cell phone samples are nearly identical to those from landline samples alone, as long as the younger age group is still sufficiently represented. Compared to German microdata from the sample survey of income and expenditure, the age group below 45 years old in our data is slightly overrepresented to the disadvantage of the group 65 +. The overall age distribution, left-right self-placement and the level of urbanization is highly consistent with that of the European Social Survey 2008 (see Table B1). We are thus confident that our sample is not biased by the sampling through landline. 2 A law on data retention (Vorratsdatenspeicherung) became effective in 2008. It made the preventive storage of detailed records of telephone and internet traffic through companies compulsory. Later—after the fieldwork period of this study—it was declared unconstitutional by Germany's Federal Constitutional Court. A revised law on data retention was adopted in 2015. 3 This analysis and the following factor analyses were cross-checked using the polychoric command in Stata. Polychoric performs a factor analysis using a polychoric correlation matrix and is suitable for dichotomous or ordinal variables.

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principles (no measures of authoritarian dispositions were available). Our index of two variables mapping support for harsher sentences to deter people from committing (further) crimes focused on one dimension of punitive attitudes, i.e., the severity of penal sanction for those who have committed a crime (see Adriaenssen & Aertsen, 2014). Positive evaluations of the performance of surveillance policies are assumed to enhance the acceptance of these policies among citizens. In accordance with findings on performance-related sources of trust, it is also reasonable to expect that policy evaluations will, over the long run, affect political trust (e.g., Miller & Listhaug, 1999; Weatherford, 1987). To control this twofold influence of performance evaluations, we included an index of perceived surveillance policy effectiveness in our model. It combined two variables measuring the perceived effectiveness of the newly introduced security measures to both prevent terrorist attacks and reduce the number of crimes. We equally tested the influence of ideology (left-right self-placement) as it was expected to be related to political trust and policy acceptance. However, this variable did not have a significant effect on acceptance of surveillance—neither as a main effect nor as a moderator of political trust— and the results across models with and without this variable were stable (full model in Appendix B, Table B2). Therefore, it was excluded from our final model. A variable measuring the frequency of internet use was added to take into account the possibility that internet users might be more skeptical about surveillance. Such users are assumed to be more familiar with technological and electronic developments in data collection, trans- mission and evaluation. Alternatively, they might consider surveillance- free space as more important than other people. Finally, we controlled for socio-demographic variables such as age (in years divided by ten), gender (male as reference), and educational level (four levels of formal qualification) as we cannot exclude their influence on political trust and on acceptance of surveillance.

People in Germany were rather well-informed about the surveillance measures, with < 3% of the German population having heard of none or only one of the seven measures, and 65% knowing about five or more. Whereas > 86% had heard both about the introduction of biometric data in personal documents and the possibility of searching a suspect's personal computer, only about 53% had heard about the gathering of passengers' data and the existence of an anti-terror database. Comparing levels of information and acceptance, it is noteworthy that the anti-terror database, as one of the least known surveillance measures, garnered the second highest level of support (78%). Besides the gathering of passengers' data, which garnered significantly greater support when known about (72%) than when not known about (64%), the acceptance of a surveillance measure did not differ significantly with information about that measure. The picture was rather different when we differentiated between people with high and low levels of political trust. The gap in acceptance of surveillance between those with high levels of political trust on our trust index (≥ 5 on a 10-point scale) and those who showed low trust in political institutions (< 5) was significant for all seven measures. It ranged from nine percentage points (access to digital pictures) to 13 percentage points (searches of personal computer), providing first evidence in favor of hypothesis H1. 5.2. Multivariate models Fig. 1 reports the results of two OLS regressions estimating the effects of political trust and information on acceptance of surveillance policies while controlling for the attitudinal and demographic factors mentioned above (all effects are displayed in Table A3 in the Appendix A). Whereas Model 1 presents independent effects, Model 2 includes an interaction term defined as the product of political trust and policy- specific information. Model 1 shows how political trust influenced attitudes towards surveillance measures. Most relevant to our research question, the effect of political trust on support for surveillance measures was significant and positive, whereas the effect of information was insignificant. The greater people's trust in government, the legal system and the police, the greater the acceptance of extended surveillance policies. Controlling for the other factors, the difference between a low and high level of political trust was about 1.6 points on an acceptance scale from zero to ten, which provided considerable evidence in favor of our first hypothesis (H1). Compared to the other potential indicators of acceptance of surveillance policies, political trust was one of the main explanatory factors in a model with a very good explanatory power. Besides political trust, other factors—fear of crime and terrorism, punitive attitudes, and perceived policy effectiveness—fostered the acceptance of surveillance. Most outstanding was the effect of perceived policy effectiveness, showing a gap of about three points between people who did/did not believe these policies to be effective in reducing crime and terrorism, followed by punitiveness, showing a difference of nearly two points between those who opposed/supported harsher punishments. Participants who had lower education levels, or who did not frequently use the internet, and women, tended to have higher levels of surveillance policy acceptance. In a second step, we tested whether the influence of political trust was related to an individual's level of policy-specific information in this field (Model 2). We hypothesized that political trust would either function as surrogate for information (H2a), i.e., be more important for people holding little information on surveillance, or alternatively that information was a prerequisite for trust (H2b), i.e., trust would be more important for those with much information on surveillance policies. Adding the interaction term—the product of political trust and information—only minimally increased the explanatory power of the model while all other factors remained stable. However, the t-statistics of the interaction term showed statistical significance for the interaction of the average effects of political trust and information. The

4.6. Methods In order to get a general idea of the level of acceptance of surveillance policies in Germany we provide descriptive statistics on the mean level of acceptance overall, as well as split by level of information and political trust. To test hypothesis H1 we estimate a linear regression model of the acceptance of surveillance measures on political trust, information and the control variables. To determine which (if any) of our antithetic hypotheses H2a and H2b is supported by the data, we estimate the same model but include an interaction between political trust and information. Further, all robustness checks were performed using linear regression modelling. As a result of listwise deletion, all analyses were performed on a reduced sample of 1824 cases.4 5. Results 5.1. Trust, information, and acceptance of surveillance policies Table 1 discloses information about levels of acceptance of the seven surveillance measures enumerated above. The evaluation of surveillance measures turned out to be rather positive: an average of four measures was accepted (and considered to be very good or rather good). Only about 5% of respondents opposed all seven surveillance measures and almost half of the population supported at least five of the measures. The introduction of biometric data in personal documents was accepted by 80% of the population whereas the retention of telecommunications data was supported by only 31%. 4 We compared the estimates for this reduced sample (listwise deletion) with the estimates after multiple imputation and found no noticeable differences: all effects remain stable with no changes in the significance of the estimates (see Table B3). As multiple imputation does not add any further information, we refrain from using an imputed sample.

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Table 1 Acceptance of surveillance policies by levels of information and trust (in %).

Retention of telecommunications data Searches of personal computers of suspects Online access to personal bank records of s. Gathering passengers' data Online access to digital images of suspects Holding an anti-terror database Biometric data in documents

Total

With information

Without information

High political trust

Low political trust

31.01 49.28 56.61 67.82 77.07 77.56 79.63

31.43 48.84 56.66 71.50 76.78 77.36 78.93

30.22 52.15 56.37 63.76 77.53 77.79 83.94

36.07 55.16 62.16 72.29 81.01 82.58 84.28

24.86 42.12 49.86 62.37 72.28 71.44 73.96

Notes: Surveillance Survey, 2009. N = 1824; acceptance: evaluation of surveillance measures as very good or rather good; political trust: mean score over levels of trust in the federal government, the police, and the legal system (additive index) on a 10-point-scale (with high political trust ≥ 5 and low political trust < 5); significantly different mean values between groups are displayed in bold.

Fig. 2. Interaction between political trust and information. Notes: Surveillance Survey, 2009.

Golder, 2005). The continuous line in this figure shows the effect of a marginal change in political trust on acceptance of surveillance policies at different levels of information (dashed lines: 95% confidence intervals). A marginal increase in political trust fostered the acceptance of surveillance policies only among people with moderate to high levels of information about these policies. In line with hypothesis 2b, our results suggest that belief in the good intentions of government gains importance when surveillance policies are evaluated by people who are aware of the existence of the wide scope of these policies. 5.3. Robustness tests Fig. 1. Explaining acceptance of surveillance policies.

Given the complexity of surveillance policies, individuals might identify different authorities as being accountable for the implementation of these policies. In order to know if one of the three institutions mentioned in the political trust measure was particularly associated with surveillance policies, we calculated separate models for trust in the government, the legal system, and the police (see Table A4). Estimated in separate models, all three trust dimensions showed strong effects on the acceptance of surveillance measures. Confirming the robustness of our results, as set out above, all other explanatory variables remained stable regardless of the estimated trust dimension. Trust in the police had the strongest explanatory power, but there were only minor differences between the coefficients of trust in the police and trust in the government. The effect of trust in the legal system was weak (and even became insignificant when the variable was tested together with trust in the police), indicating that the judiciary was not primarily associated with surveillance policies. One might argue that political trust is particularly important for the acceptance of surveillance measures that relate to the citizenry in general and not to measures that solely concern suspects. To test this,

Notes: Surveillance Survey, 2009; N = 1824; Model 1: Model without interaction term (N = 1824; adj. R2 = 0.368); Model 2: Model with interaction term (N = 1824; adj. R 2 = 0.374); dots: regression coefficients; horizontal lines: 95% confidence intervals; insignificant effects in grey.

direction of this interaction corresponded to our hypothesis 2b: policy- specific information strengthened the relevance of political trust in explaining an individual's acceptance of surveillance policies. To illustrate this interaction in more detail, we have plotted the marginal effect of political trust for each value of information in Fig. 2.5 The plot was calculated according to the instructions provided by Wenzelburger, Jäckle, and König (2014, see also Brambor, Clark, and

5 A density plot comparing the acceptance of surveillance of people with low and high interaction values to the overall density is shown in Fig. B1. The distribution of people with low interaction values is strongly comparable to the overall distribution of acceptance of surveillance, whereas those with higher interaction values have higher density towards stronger support of surveillance.

426

separate analyses for measures targeting citizens and measures targeting suspects were conducted (see Table A5). They showed largely the same results on the influence of political trust and its interaction with policyspecific information. To assess the importance of the political dimension of the information variable in our models, we further analyzed the relationship between education and policy-specific information. Education has often been found to correlate with favoring civil liberties over security measures, but other factors such as the possession of relevant information, evaluative skills, or critical sensibilities regarding governmental authority might be responsible for this relationship (e.g., Green et al., 2011). Even though the better educated were slightly better informed about surveillance, the correlation between education and policy-specific information was low. We equally tested a possible interaction between the level of education and political trust (see Table A6). This interaction proved to be insignificant, whereas political trust did have an even stronger effect than in Model 1 or 2. Thus, it was a particular feature of information and knowledge that had an impact on the role of political trust. This means that policy-specific information interacting with political trust cannot be replaced by education. One might expect an influence of socialization in the former GDR on the acceptance of surveillance and on the effects of political trust. We therefore conducted additional analyses with a variable accounting for current residence in East or West Germany. According to these analyses, this differentiation between East and West German citizens did not significantly influence the acceptance of surveillance nor did it serve as a moderator of political trust.

respects. First, our results do not support the argument that people compensate for informational constraints by relying on political trust (Shambaugh, 2013). On the contrary, respondents without any policyspecific information did not use trust as a heuristic to reduce complexity. Only people with a certain level of awareness of the authorities' effective use of power relied on political trust when evaluating surveillance policies. It seems that the more people heard about these policies, the more receptive they were to information about increasing these powers, and the more they were driven by their beliefs about the authorities' intentions. Second, we have shown that political trust is an important determinant of policy attitudes even when controlling the influence of performance evaluations. Thus, even if political trust might be partially rooted in positive experiences of government performance, it goes largely beyond a generalized performance evaluation. We suggest that similar studies should be conducted in other countries to further ex- amine these relationships and to better understand the implications of political trust for policy acceptance in societies with lower levels of trust than Germany. It is a limitation of our study that, for reasons arising from data unavailability, we had to concentrate on one aspect of information, namely awareness of the existence of surveillance measures. Political trust becomes particularly relevant for people who are aware of the existence of extended surveillance activities. Further analyses of the interaction between trust and information should assess the effects of other dimensions of political information such as detailed information about the personal consequences of different policies in this domain. We are also not able to show if these relationships are stronger or weaker if the issues of terrorism and surveillance are more salient as was the case in the recent past. Another limitation of this study is that we were not able to provide empirical evidence for the causal direction underlying the relationship between political trust and acceptance of surveillance policies. Based on the existing literature, we concluded that the more people trust in their government, justice system and police, the more willing they are to support surveillance measures even when controlled for fear of crime and terrorism, etc. However, we suggest that, in the long run, positive evaluations of domestic security policies might also have a positive influence on people's trust in relevant political institutions. Finally, given the high number of state agencies and private actors who un- dertake surveillance activities, future research might compare attitudes towards statecontrolled surveillance and surveillance activities of private organizations.

6. Discussion and conclusion The main purpose of this study was to determine whether political trust encouraged the support of governmental surveillance measures and whether political trust mattered more for those with little or those with high or low levels of information about surveillance. The relationship between political trust and support for surveillance measures was assessed using survey data from Germany. Our main results were: On average, the surveillance measures described above were rather well-known and accepted but they differed considerably when looked at individually. We found a positive relationship between political trust and acceptance of surveillance policies—for the combined index as well as for all seven measures individually—supporting our first hypothesis. Even though information about surveillance measures did not have a direct impact on the acceptance of these policies, the importance of political trust increased significantly with higher levels of information about these measures, a finding that is in line with our hypothesis 2b. What are the implications of these results for research on policy attitudes and political trust? Our analysis in the field of surveillance policies adds considerable evidence to previous research that focused on the relevance of trust for both the evaluation of social policies (e.g., Hetherington, 2006; Rudolph & Popp, 2009) and a broader range of anti-terrorism policies (Davis & Silver, 2004; Denemark, 2012). A common denominator of all these policies is that they imply a great deal of potential risks for individuals, such as cuts in social benefits, etc. In our study, political trust was significant for the acceptance of policies jeopardizing individual liberties and, at the same time, putting individuals in a position of uncertainty. Thus, while surveillance policies can be seen as an expression of distrust by the state, political trust helps citizens to accept such policies. This finding not only applies to policies that enable the government to gather and retain information on all citizens but also applies to policies solely relating to suspects. A broad normative discussion about the necessity of a reservoir of political trust would go beyond the scope of this paper. However, the potential danger of a too trusting citizenry that uncritically accepts policies with farreaching consequences for many people should be pointed out. The finding of an interaction between trust and information considerably expands our understanding of political trust in several

Funding sources Research of the first author on this topic has been funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) in the context of a research project on "Conditional support for civil liberties and preferences for domestic security policies among citizens in Germany" (grant number: 270157613). Acknowledgements The data used in this study stem from a research project entitled “The transparent citizen between apathy and resistance – the genesis of new governmental surveillance technologies and their effects on attitudes and behavior of the population”. The project was run at the Institute for Security and Prevention Research (ISIP), Hamburg. It was funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) (Grant number 62379905). The authors would like to thank the researchers involved in this project, especially Sebastian Scheerer and Christina Schlepper for providing the data used in this manuscript. We also thank the anon- ymous reviewers of GIQ for their helpful comments and suggestions. The analyses and interpretation of the data are the sole responsibility of the authors.

427

Appendix A Table A1 Description of variables.

Variables

Min; max

Acceptance of surveillance policies Policy-specific information

0; 10

Political trust Social trust Fear of crime and terrorism Punitive attitudes Perceived surveillance policy effectiveness Education

Internet use Age Gender

Min label Max label

Mean SD

Surveillance is very bad Surveillance is very good 0; 10 No information Full information 0; 10 Very little trust Very much trust 0; 10 No social trust very high level of social trust 0; 10 No fear very high level of fear 0; 10 Completely opposed to harsher punishment Completely in favor of harsher punishment 0; 10 No effective policy Very effective policy 0; 3 Lowest formal qualification of Germany's tripartite secondary school system, after 8 or 9 years of schooling Highest qualification, entitling holders to study at a university 0; 10 Never Daily 1.8; 9.5 18 years 95 years 0; 1 Male Female

5.75

2.13

6.96

2.17

5.10

1.76

5.24 4.46 7.33

2.35 2.10 2.73

1.51

2.52

1.51

1.17

6.15

4.17

4.91

1.76

Note: Analyses in the appendices are based on data from the Surveillance Study, 2009 (unless otherwise specified).

Table A2 Question wording.

Variable

Question wording and scale

Acceptance of surveillance policies

How do you evaluate the following measure? Is it “very good” (max label), “rather good”, “rather bad” or “very bad”? A: The introduction of biometric passports and biometric identity cards containing a digital image and two fingerprints B: granting law enforcement agencies like the police and traffic authorities online access to digital images in biometric passports or biometric identity cards of suspects. C: granting police, tax authorities, employment agencies and social welfare offices online access to personal bank records of suspects D: Instructing telecommunication providers to retain the following data for a period of 6 months: data about telephone calls made and received, emails sent and received, and web sites visited; in the case of using mobile phones, the data enable the identification of the location of the mobile phone E: Permitting governmental security agencies to search suspects' personal computers for evidence of illegal activities without their knowledge F: the establishment of an anti-terror database to which 38 German law enforcement agencies have access. Information in this database includes name, address, religion, travel movements, bank details, or the possession of firearms. G: Gathering and passing on of air and ship passenger data to the federal German police. Information includes name, gender, nationality, and detailed information on travel movements. I will read out different policies… Have you ever heard about the following measures? Have you ever heard about … A: … biometric identity documents, such as biometric passports or biometric identity cards? B: … the opportunity for law enforcement agencies to have online access to digital images in biometric passports or biometric identity cards? C: … the opportunity for tax authorities, employment agencies, social welfare offices, and the police to have online access to personal bank records? D: …. the retention of data related to telephone calls and internet activities by telecommunication providers for a period of 6 months? E: … the opportunity for governmental security agencies to search personal computers? F: … the existence of an anti-terror database? G: … gathering air and ship passenger data by the federal German police?

Policy-specific information

428

Political trust Social trust Fear of crime and terrorism

Punitive attitudes

Perceived surveillance policy effectiveness Education

Internet use Age Gender

Yes/no How much do you personally trust each of the following state institutions in Germany? Do you have very much, much, little, very little trust in … the federal government? … the legal system? … the police? How strong do you agree with the statement that most people can be trusted? Do you fully agree, rather agree, rather disagree, or not agree at all with this statement? How afraid are you … … of becoming victim of a theft? … of becoming victim of a burglary? … of becoming victim of an assault? … that there will be terrorist attacks in Germany? Are you not afraid at all, little afraid, fairly afraid, very afraid Please say to what extent you agree or disagree with each of the following statements. Do you fully agree, rather agree, rather disagree, or not agree at all with the following statements? … Harsh sentences are necessary to deter people from committing crimes. … Harsh sentences are often the only way to deter offenders from committing further crimes. …Do you think that the introduced security measures will prevent terrorist attacks in Germany? … Do you think that the introduced security measures will reduce the effective number of crimes? Definitely yes, probably yes, probably not, definitely not. What is the highest level of education you have completed? 0: Lowest formal qualification of Germany's tripartite secondary school system, after 8 or 9 years of schooling 1: Intermediary secondary qualification, after 10 years of schooling 2: Advanced technical college certificate 3: Higher qualification, entitling holders to study at a university Please tell us, do you use the Internet for private purposes? Yes/No. If yes: How much of the time do you use the Internet for private purposes? Daily, several times a week, several times a month, more seldom, never Please tell me: how old are you? Male (0), female (1)

Note: Surveillance Survey, 2009. All variables had non-response options (not shown in table).

Table A3 Determinants of acceptance of surveillance policies.

Model 1

Intercept Political trust Policy-specific information Political trust ∗ information Social trust Fear of crime and terrorism Punitive attitudes Perceived policy effectiveness Internet use Education Age Gender (female) Adj. R2 N ⁎p

Model 2

B

SE

Beta

1.596⁎⁎⁎ 0.168⁎⁎⁎ 0.016

(0.29) (0.03) (0.02)

0.139 0.016

0.014 0.106⁎⁎⁎ 0.192⁎⁎⁎ 0.308⁎⁎⁎ − 0.030⁎⁎ − 0.206⁎⁎⁎ 0.025 0.323⁎⁎⁎ 0.368 1824

(0.02) (0.02) (0.02) (0.02) (0.01) (0.04) (0.03) (0.08)

0.015 0.104 0.246 0.366 − 0.059 − 0.113 0.021 0.076

B

SE

Beta

2.962⁎⁎⁎ − 0.101 − 0.174⁎⁎⁎ 0.039⁎⁎⁎ 0.011 0.101⁎⁎⁎ 0.190⁎⁎⁎ 0.306⁎⁎⁎ − 0.029⁎ − 0.209⁎⁎⁎ 0.027 0.327⁎⁎⁎ 0.374 1824

(0.45) (0.07) (0.05) (0.01) (0.02) (0.02) (0.02) (0.02) (0.01) (0.04) (0.03) (0.08)

− 0.084 − 0.178 0.317 0.013 0.099 0.243 0.363 − 0.056 − 0.115 0.022 0.077

< 0.05.

⁎⁎ p ⁎⁎⁎ p

< 0.01. < 0.001.

Table A4 Explanatory models for different objects of trust.

Model 1

Intercept Trust in government Trust in justice Trust in police Policy-specific information

Model 2

B

SE

Beta

1.592⁎⁎⁎ 0.323⁎⁎⁎

(0.30) (0.07)

0.101

0.022⁎

(0.02)

0.022

Model 3

B

SE

1.587⁎⁎⁎

(0.31)

0.247⁎⁎⁎

(0.06)

0.081

0.018

(0.02)

0.018

429

Beta

B

SE

1.328⁎⁎⁎

(0.31)

0.388⁎⁎⁎ 0.015

(0.06) (0.02)

Beta

0.081 0.018

Social trust Fear of crime and terrorism Punitive attitudes Perceived policy effect. Internet use Education Age Gender (Female) Adj. R2 N ⁎p

0.027 0.101⁎⁎⁎ 0.193⁎⁎⁎ 0.320⁎⁎⁎ − 0.030⁎⁎ − 0.204⁎⁎⁎ 0.014 0.326⁎⁎⁎ 0.361 1824

(0.02) (0.02) (0.02) (0.02) (0.01) (0.04) (0.03) (0.08)

0.03 0.1 0.247 0.38 − 0.059 − 0.112 0.012 0.077

0.026 0.104⁎⁎⁎ 0.197⁎⁎⁎ 0.334⁎⁎⁎ − 0.030⁎⁎ − 0.189⁎⁎⁎ 0.027 0.320⁎⁎⁎ 0.359 1824

(0.02) (0.02) (0.02) (0.02) (0.01) (0.04) (0.03) (0.08)

0.029 0.102 0.252 0.397 − 0.06 − 0.104 0.022 0.075

0.023 0.102⁎⁎⁎ 0.187⁎⁎⁎ 0.324⁎⁎⁎ − 0.031⁎⁎ − 0.176⁎⁎⁎ 0.017 0.306⁎⁎⁎ 0.366 1824

(0.02) (0.02) (0.02) (0.02) (0.01) (0.04) (0.03) (0.08)

0.029 0.102 0.252 0.397 − 0.06 − 0.104 0.022 0.075

< 0.05.

⁎⁎ p ⁎⁎⁎ p

< 0.01. < 0.001.

Table A5 Acceptance of surveillance policies with different scope (citizens, suspects).

Citizens as target group

Model 1

Model 2

B

SE

Beta

Intercept Political trust Policy-specific information Political trust * information Social trust Fear of crime and terrorism Punitive attitudes Perceived policy effect. Internet use Education Age Gender (female) Adj. R2 N

1.762⁎⁎⁎ 0.179⁎⁎⁎ − 0.010

(0.33) (0.03) (0.02)

0.138 − 0.009

0.034 0.113⁎⁎⁎ 0.174⁎⁎⁎ 0.294⁎⁎⁎ − 0.016 − 0.202⁎⁎⁎ − 0.026 0.202⁎ 0.283 1824

(0.02) (0.02) (0.02) (0.02) (0.01) (0.04) (0.03) (0.09)

0.035 0.104 0.208 0.325 − 0.029 − 0.103 − 0.020 0.044

Suspects as target group

Model 1

Intercept Political trust Policy-specific information Political trust ∗ information Social trust Fear of crime and terrorism Punitive attitudes Perceived policy effect. Internet use Education Age Gender (female) Adj. R2 N ⁎p

⁎⁎⁎ p

SE

Beta

3.486⁎⁎⁎ − 0.161⁎ − 0.250⁎⁎⁎ 0.049⁎⁎⁎ 0.031 0.107⁎⁎⁎ 0.171⁎⁎⁎ 0.291⁎⁎⁎ − 0.014 − 0.207⁎⁎⁎ − 0.024 0.207⁎ 0.290 1824

(0.51) (0.08) (0.06) (0.01) (0.02) (0.02) (0.02) (0.02) (0.01) (0.04) (0.03) (0.09)

− 0.124 − 0.237 0.372 0.032 0.098 0.204 0.321 − 0.025 − 0.105 − 0.019 0.045

B

SE

Beta

2.569⁎⁎⁎ − 0.057 − 0.118⁎ 0.031⁎⁎ − 0.003 0.096⁎⁎⁎ 0.204⁎⁎⁎ 0.317⁎⁎⁎ − 0.040⁎⁎ − 0.211⁎⁎⁎ 0.065⁎ 0.417⁎⁎⁎ 0.340 1824

(0.50) (0.08) (0.06) (0.01) (0.02) (0.02) (0.02) (0.02) (0.01) (0.04) (0.03) (0.09)

− 0.043 − 0.110 0.232 − 0.003 0.086 0.238 0.342 − 0.071 − 0.106 0.049 0.089

Model 2

B

SE

Beta

1.471⁎⁎⁎ 0.160⁎⁎⁎ 0.035

(0.33) (0.03) (0.02)

0.121 0.032

− 0.002 0.100⁎⁎⁎ 0.206⁎⁎⁎ 0.319⁎⁎⁎ − 0.041⁎⁎ − 0.209⁎⁎⁎ 0.064⁎ 0.414⁎⁎⁎ 0.337 1824

(0.02) (0.02) (0.02) (0.02) (0.01) (0.04) (0.03) (0.09)

− 0.002 0.090 0.240 0.344 − 0.074 − 0.104 0.048 0.089

< 0.05.

⁎⁎ p

B

< 0.01. < 0.001.

430

Table A6 Education and acceptance of surveillance policies.

Model 1

Intercept Political trust Policy-specific information Political trust ∗ education Social trust Fear of crime and terrorism Punitive attitudes Perceived policy effect. Internet use Education Age Gender (female) Adj. R2 N

Model 2

B

SE

Beta

1.596⁎⁎⁎ 0.168⁎⁎⁎ 0.016⁎

(0.29) (0.03) (0.02)

0.139 0.016

0.014 0.106⁎⁎⁎ 0.192⁎⁎⁎ 0.308⁎⁎⁎ − 0.030⁎⁎ − 0.206⁎⁎⁎ 0.025 0.323⁎⁎⁎ 0.368 1824

(0.02) (0.02) (0.02) (0.02) (0.01) (0.04) (0.03) (0.08)

0.015 0.104 0.246 0.366 − 0.059 − 0.113 0.021 0.076

B

SE

Beta

1.548⁎⁎⁎ 0.177⁎⁎⁎ 0.016 − 0.006 0.014 0.106⁎⁎⁎ 0.192⁎⁎⁎ 0.308⁎⁎⁎ − 0.030⁎⁎ − 0.173 0.026 0.323⁎⁎⁎ 0.368 1824

(0.33) (0.04) (0.02) (0.02) (0.02) (0.02) (0.02) (0.02) (0.01) (0.11) (0.03) (0.08)

0.147 0.016 − 0.022 0.015 0.105 0.247 0.366 − 0.059 − 0.095 0.021 0.076

⁎p

< 0.05. < 0.01. ⁎⁎⁎ p < 0.001. ⁎⁎ p

Appendix B. Additional analyses Table B1 Comparison of age, left-right self-placement and level of urbanization between the ESS 4 (2008) and the Surveillance Survey Data (2009).

ESS 4

Germany (total) Age Left-right position Urbanization West Germany Age Left-right position Urbanization East Germany Age Left-right position Urbanization

Surveillance data

Mean

SD

Mean

SD

49.47 4.68 2.96

16.84 1.85 0.86

49.59 4.91 2.97

18.01 1.89 0.86

49.24 4.85 2.96

16.66 1.83 0.86

49.14 5.01 2.98

18.02 1.85 0.84

49.24 4.85 2.96

16.66 1.83 0.86

49.14 5.01 2.98

18.02 1.85 0.84

Note: Weighted means, using the German data from the European Social Survey 2008 and the Surveillance Survey Data 2009 used in this study. Age in years, left-right self-placement on 10-point scale, urbanization on 4-point scale (farm or home in countryside: < 2000 inhabitants; country village: 2000–100,000 inh.; town or small city: 100,000–500,000 inh.; suburbs or outskirt of big city or big city: > 500,000 inh.). ESS 4: European Social Survey Round 4 Data (2008). Data file edition 4.4. NSD - Norwegian Centre for Research Data, Norway – Data Archive and distributor of ESS data for ESS ERIC.

Table B2 Determinants of acceptance of surveillance policies with left-right position.

Model 1

Intercept Political trust Policy-specific information Political trust * information Social trust Fear of crime and terrorism Punitive attitudes Perceived policy effectiveness Internet use Education

Model 2

B

SE

Beta

1.979⁎⁎⁎ 0.152⁎⁎⁎ 0.029⁎⁎

(0.33) (0.03) (0.02)

0.126 0.030

0.015 0.112⁎⁎⁎ 0.192⁎⁎⁎ 0.317⁎⁎⁎ − 0.030⁎ − 0.219⁎⁎⁎

(0.02) (0.02) (0.02) (0.02) (0.01) (0.04)

0.016 0.110 0.247 0.375 − 0.059 − 0.120

431

B

SE

Beta

3.656⁎⁎⁎ − 0.180⁎ − 0.203⁎⁎⁎ 0.047⁎⁎⁎ 0.011 0.106⁎⁎⁎ 0.190⁎⁎⁎ 0.314⁎⁎⁎ − 0.028⁎ − 0.224⁎⁎⁎

(0.48) (0.07) (0.05) (0.01) (0.02) (0.02) (0.02) (0.02) (0.01) (0.04)

− 0.150 − 0.206 0.390 0.012 0.105 0.244 0.372 − 0.054 − 0.123

Age Gender (female) Left-right position Adj. R2 N ⁎p ⁎⁎ p

0.025 0.298⁎⁎⁎ − 0.000 0.375 1735

(0.03) (0.08) (0.02)

0.021 0.070 − 0.000

0.028 0.306⁎⁎⁎ − 0.003 0.383 1735

(0.03) (0.08) (0.02)

0.024 0.072 − 0.002

< 0.05. < 0.01. < 0.001.

⁎⁎⁎ p

Table B3 Determinants of acceptance of surveillance policies (after multiple imputation).⁎

Model 1

Model 2

B

SE

B

SE

Intercept Political trust Policy-specific information Political trust ∗ information Social trust Fear of crime and terrorism Punitive attitudes Perceived policy effectiveness Internet use Education Age Gender (female)

1.856⁎⁎⁎ 0.167⁎⁎⁎ 0.015

(0.31) (0.02) (0.02)

0.013 0.107⁎⁎⁎ 0.195⁎⁎⁎ 0.316⁎⁎⁎ − 0.029⁎⁎ − 0.179⁎⁎⁎ 0.025 0.331⁎⁎⁎

(0.02) (0.02) (0.02) (0.02) (0.01) (0.04) (0.03) (0.08)

3.149⁎⁎⁎ − 0.092 − 0.168⁎⁎⁎ 0.037⁎⁎⁎ 0.011 0.103⁎⁎⁎ 0.193⁎⁎⁎ 0.314⁎⁎⁎ − 0.027 − 0.182⁎⁎⁎ 0.026 0.339⁎⁎⁎

(0.44) (0.07) (0.05) (0.01) (0.02) (0.02) (0.02) (0.02) (0.01) (0.04) (0.03) (0.08)

Imputations/knn Adjusted R2 N

50/10 0.375 2058

50/10 0.381 2058

The models of this table correspond to Table A3 in Appendix A. ⁎ p < 0.05. ⁎⁎ p < 0.01. ⁎⁎⁎ p < 0.001.

Fig. B1. Density plot of acceptance of surveillance.

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Eva-Maria Trüdinger is a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for Social Sciences, University of Stuttgart. Her research focuses on public opinion about policies, the welfare state, and questions of political psychology. Leonie C. Steckermeier (M.A.) is a research fellow at the Department of Macrosociology, Otto-vonGuericke-University Magdeburg. Her research interests include capabilities and agency, trust and quality of life.

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