Title: Does Better Offense and Better Trust in Government Increase Individual Participation in Politics?
Author: Andi Ahmad Mardinsyah,
Universitas Airlangga
Item Type : Thesis (Thesis)
Abstract
This study aims to analyze the relationship between poverty and trust in the government on individuals' decisions to vote in general elections. The government is represented by the president and the legislature. Data were obtained from the 2014 National Socioeconomic Survey (Susenas) Social Resilience Module (Hansos). The observation unit is the Indonesian population who are eligible to participate in general elections based on law and are not members of the Indonesian National Armed Forces (TNI) or the Indonesian National Police (Polri), encompassing 71,049 households. This study uses two models. First, binary probit regression is used to analyze the determinants of trust in the government. Second, probit regression with instrumental variables is used to examine the influence of poverty and trust in the government on individuals' decisions to vote. The first model shows that all independent variables significantly influence trust in the government, except for an individual's employment status. Individuals with higher education and expenditure (better off) tend to distrust the government. This is suspected to occur due to disappointment with the government's performance. The second model shows that poverty and trust in the government influence individuals' decisions to vote. Poverty makes individuals not vote in elections. Similarly, well-off individuals tend not to vote in elections. The higher the sense of trust (better trust), the greater the opportunity for individuals to vote in elections.
Keywords: poverty, trust in government, general elections, probit regression, instrument variables