Finding Critical Trusters: A Response Pattern Model of Political Trust

• In Event: 3558 - Political Culture, Trust and Civic Engagement

Abstract

How can declining political trust in Western democracies be explained especially when it remains stable and high in authoritarian societies? Underlying this question is a debate about whether political trust represents a diffuse orientation towards the political system as a whole or a specific assessment of incumbent performance. This paper argues that the solution requires a move away from existing approaches that focus on question content and instead thinking about the pattern of responses. While previous work assumes that individuals display both specific and diffuse trust, we argue that the individual patterning of responses indicates either diffuse or specific trust but not both. We develop a response pattern model and use it to identify three types of individuals – critical trusters (specific trust), compliants (diffuse trust), and cynics (diffuse distrust). Tests of the model with the World Values Survey and the U.S. General Social Survey show that democracies have a higher proportion of critical trusters than other systems of government and that the proportion of critical trusters has increased over time in the United States. The response pattern model directly connects cross-national and longitudinal empirical evidence to theory about the relationship between democracy and different types of trust.

Authors

• Cary Wu

• Rima Wilkes, University of British Columbia