The Social Transformation of Trust in Government

The phenomenon of declining political trust among the American public has been widely discussed, with the explanations often focusing on specific historical events or the unique problems of American political institutions. We first demonstrate that public doubts about politicians and government are spreading across almost all advanced industrial democracies. The pervasiveness of this trend suggests that common social forces are affecting these nations, and we examine the social correlates of the decrease in trust. We find the greatest declines are among the better-educated and upper social status. These results suggest that changing citizen expectations, rather than the failure of governments, are prompting the erosion of political support in advanced industrial democracies.

[1]  D. Easton,et al.  A Systems Analysis of Political Life , 1966 .

[2]  Laszlo Zsolnai,et al.  The rationality of trust20051Russell Hardin. The rationality of trustTrust and Trustworthiness. New York: Russell Sage Foundation 2002.: Trust and Trustworthiness , 2005 .

[3]  J. Kempton,et al.  THE FUTURE OF DEMOCRACY , 1925 .

[4]  S. Craig,et al.  Broken Contract? , 1996 .

[5]  S. Pharr.  EIGHT. Officials' Misconduct and Public Distrust: Japan and the Trilateral Democracies , 2000 .

[6]  O. Listhaug.  The Dynamics of Trust in Politicians , 1995 .

[7]  D. Easton.  A Re-assessment of the Concept of Political Support , 1975, British Journal of Political Science.

[8]  C. Anderson,et al.  Political Institutions and Satisfaction with Democracy: A Cross-National Analysis of Consensus and Majoritarian Systems , 1997, American Political Science Review.

[9]  Seymour Martin Lipset,et al.  The Confidence Gap , 1983 .

[10]  J. Karp,et al.  Coalition government and satisfaction with democracy: An analysis of New Zealand's reaction to proportional representation. , 2001 .

[11]  A. Alesina,et al.  The Economics of Civic Trust , 2005 .

[12]  C. Offe,et al.  Contradictions of the Welfare State , 1985 .

[13]  S. Lipset,et al.  The Confidence Gap during the Reagan Years, 1981-1987 , 1987 .

[14]  The Development of Political Attitudes in Children. , 1969 .

[15]  M. Wattenberg,et al.  Parties Without Partisans , 2002 .

[16]  Valerie Braithwaite,et al.  Trust and Governance , 1999 .

[17]  Arthur H. Miller,et al.  Confidence in Government During the 1980s , 1991 .

[18]  S. Holmberg.  Down and Down We Go: Political Trust in Sweden , 1999 .

[19]  M. Wattenberg,et al.  Parties without partisans : political change in advanced industrial democracies , 2000 .

[20]  H. Kepplinger.  Skandale und Politikverdrossenheit — ein Langzeitvergleich , 1996 .

[21]  R. Inglehart,et al.  Value Change in Global Perspective. , 1996 .

[22]  W. Williams.  Why people don't trust government , 1998 .

[23]  P. Norris.  Critical citizens : global support for democratic government , 1999 .

[24]  Samuel P. Huntington,et al.  The Crisis of Democracy , 1975 .

[25]  R. Dalton,et al.  Germany Transformed: Political Culture and the New Politics , 1981 .

[26]  Kenneth Newton,et al.  Trust in people, confidence in political institutions and satisfaction with democracy , 2007 .