Abstract In times of multiple crises (including a global pandemic, wars in Ukraine and the Middle East), trust in institutions is being put to the test. This paper tests two different accounts of the relationship between institutional trust and fear of crime: the social capital perspective (Rothstein & Stolle, 2008), which posits that institutional trust reduces fear of crime through perceptions of effective rule enforcement, and the generalization thesis (Hirtenlehner, 2006), which holds that fear of crime primarily reflects broader social and economic anxieties rather than trust deficits per se. We conduct an exploratory conceptual replication based on two independent representative samples from Munich ( N = 5,152) and Hamburg ( N = 1,082). The data show that low institutional trust is significantly associated with higher fear of crime while controlling for alternative explanations of fear of crime (general anxieties, e.g., economic fears and anomia, incivilities, vulnerability). Based on these findings, we discuss policy-oriented interventions, concluding that strengthening public trust in institutions and addressing broader social disorientation are vital for mitigating crime-related anxieties.
Hanslmaier et al. (Wed,) studied this question.
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