What is the geography of trust? The urban-rural trust gap in global perspective

What is the geography of political trust? Influential studies point to a growing urban-rural cleavage between low-trust authoritarian populists in rural areas and higher-trust liberal pluralists in densely populated urban areas. We use data from the World Values Survey and European Values Survey, covering nearly 100 countries, to test whether development has a moderating effect on the urban-rural divide in political trust. Our results reveal that at high levels of development, there are similar levels of trust in government between people living in urban and rural areas, while at low levels of development we find higher levels of trust for rural populations compared to those residing in urban areas. These findings add an important caveat to the standard account of the 'geography of discontent' in advanced industrial democracies, while suggesting the need for further investigation of the trust gap in the developing world and its implications. How trust is spatially distributed matters for how polities are governed, and is consequential for electoral behaviour, trends and outcomes.