Do Perceptions of Ingroup Discrimination Fuel White Mistrust in Government? Insights from the 2012–2020 ANES and a Framing Experiment

Abstract

Since the 1960s, political elites have used implicit and overt claims that the government discriminates against whites to mobilize white voters. As a result, many white Americans perceive government policies that address racial inequalities as a form of anti-white bias and politicians who criticize racial inequities as hostile to white interests. We hypothesize that white Americans who believe their group faces discrimination are more likely to mistrust the federal government. We test our hypothesis using three American National Election Study (ANES) cross-sectional studies (2012–2020), the 2016–2020 ANES panel, and a survey experiment. Our results show a negative and significant relationship between perceived ingroup discrimination and trust in government in 2012 and 2016 but not in 2020. A lagged dependent variable (LDV) analysis shows that the negative effect of ingroup discrimination remains significant even after an LDV is included in the model, but the reverse is not the case. Finally, a framing experiment suggests that those high on ingroup discrimination beliefs are more likely to think that politicians have an anti-white agenda, while those low on such beliefs are more likely to think that politicians have an anti-Black agenda.