According to a poll, Finns now trust the US as little as Russia and China and overall social trust is on the decline

vili
2026-03-24T09:04:11Z

A Finnish language news article at the Finnish public broadcasting company's website notes that 4% of Finns currently feel that the US inspires confidence in them. 1% of respondents say the same about Russia and 3% about China. Looking at it from the opposite angle, 88% said that Russia decreases their confidence, 73% said the same about the US, and 59% about China.

The poll had a little over 1000 respondents and was carried out before the war in Iran started. The question for the above data was (my translation) "Do the following entities inspire confidence in you at the moment?" which, I suppose, is a way to measure social trust. The pollster's own report, also in Finnish, can be found here. They calculate their statistical margin of error at approximately ±3.1 percentage points at a 95% confidence level. In addition to "increases confidence", the possible answers were "doesn't increase or decrease confidence", "I don't know", and "decreases confidence".

According to the poll, more Finns gain confidence from Nordic countries (59%) than they do from Finland itself (46%). Nato (44%) ranked highest as an international organisation, with the EU second (30%).

Of domestic and social entities, the defence forces ranked highest (67%), with the president second (52%) and the police third (51%). Less than 10% of respondents felt that these three decreased their confidence (or, I suppose, social trust). Social media (2%), influencers (2%), and political parties (3%) ranked lowest as sources of social trust.

Other results that I found interesting are that 84% of the respondents either fully or partially agreed that Nordic countries are the best countries to live in and 78% fully or partially agreed that they can trust fellow humans in their everyday lives. 75% of the respondents either fully or partially agree that Finnish universities produce trustworthy information. 36% agreed either fully or partially that Finnish companies take social responsibility seriously and don't just look out for their owners' interests, while 15% felt the same about international corporations.

Overall, the report suggests that the state of social trust in Finland is on the decline.

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