Global economic crisis and its impact on political trust of European citizens

 
Abstract
Global economic crisis which started mid first decade of the third millennium after banks’ bankruptcy and the financial crisis in the U.S rapidly spread to other parts of the world. Europe was affected more than other parts of the world and is still suffering from its negative consequences, and the number of countries that are falling into the vortex of Europe’s economic crisis is increasing. But the consequences of the financial and economic crisis of Europe which itself has been affected by the global economic crisis, are not limited to the economy, and the political arena is also involved. Accordingly, the main question of the article is “ what effects have global economic crisis and subsequently Europe’s economic crisis had on European citizens’ trust on the democratic systems of their countries?” In response to this question, the main hypothesis is that there is a direct relationship between Europe’s financial and economic crisis and European citizens’ trust on their political systems and this crisis has led to a mistrust among European citizens towards neo-liberalist policies of the countries in the European Union  and ultimately, it has led to undermining of fundamental democratic assumptions of these countries. Qualitative research method of scientific explanation and library data collection were employed to test the hypothesis and measure the degree of relationship and impact of independent variable on the dependent variable alongside inferential analysis of the data.