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Deals with three main topics: the nature and origins of social trust and its importance in society; trends in social trust in Western societies (with some comparisons with less developed societies); and the relations between social and political trust, and their implications for theories of politics and society. In terms of the main concepts and measures of the book, and as outlined in the introductory chapter, social trust is a feature of the most basic level of community, while political trust refers primarily to attitudes about political institutions and leaders. The general assumption seems to be that social and political trust are closely linked, perhaps different sides of the same coin—social trust is regarded as a strong determinant of, or influence upon, political support of various kinds, including support for the political community, confidence in institutions, and trust in political leaders. As a result it is believed that the accumulation of social capital, in the form of social trust, will also result in the accumulation of political capital. Presents theory and evidence questioning these assumptions; it includes evidence comparing social trust in communal and modern societies, and of political trust in early modern and contemporary democracies.

In Scandinavia, as demonstrated by the analysis of the World Values Survey in Ch. 2, people remain highly positive towards the political community and democratic principles; nevertheless, support for the remaining three levels of measure—regime performance, political institutions, and politicians—is more problematic. This chapter therefore focuses on how trust in politicians has evolved over the last twenty to thirty years in Scandinavia (Denmark, Norway, Iceland, Netherlands, Sweden, and Finland all established, parliamentary, multi‐party, unitary, welfare state democracies. The analysis starts at the bottom level—trust in politicians—since that is where the greatest change over time might be expected, and where there is access to some of the longest measured time‐series in the Scandinavian countries. Subsequent sections of the chapter analyse support for Swedish political institutions (parties, elections, the Rikstag, and the Cabinet), and democratic processes too. Considers explanations for trends in trust in politicians and regime institutions over time.

Political theorists claim that political trust is located on the continuum that runs from blind faith to enforceable contract. Trust ‘as passion’ borders on blind faith, while trust ‘as calculation’ comes close to enforceable contract. More often located between these extremes, political trust is usually a mix of faith and calculation, varying from largely irrational responses to the charisma of political leaders to largely calculated ‘bets on the actions of others’. This chapter discusses political distrust in post-Communist Europe and looks at four broad categories of potential influences (all negative) on political trust: distrustful citizens, untrustworthy institutions, discordance between citizens and government, and hard times. It also examines incompetence, scandal, dishonesty, and corruption; responsiveness and fairness; the untrustworthiness of elected and unelected officials; and the unfairness that citizens perceive or actually experience.

First highlights common themes that have emerged in the book: an emphasis that the concept of political support of government is multi‐dimensional; the existence of divergent trends in support for regime principles and institutions; and how to interpret the consequences of the various developments that can be seen. The book aims to steer a course between the crisis theories of democracy and over‐optimistic claims that ‘all's right with the world’. The book argues that there are genuine grounds for concern about public support for the core institutions of democratic government, both in established and newer democracies, but that all too often ‘crisis’ accounts are broad‐brush and exaggerated when the diagnosis needs to be careful, systematic, and precise. Reviews the literature on democratic crisis and stability, and briefly discusses the factors necessary for consistent and systematic comparison of trends, including the conceptual framework; suitable sources of survey data; the selection of time periods; the choice of countries; and the choice of appropriate measures. The major findings about global trends in support for democratic governance are then highlighted, and potential explanations for the dynamics of political support are suggested. The roadmap of the rest of the book is then summarized.

Builds on the global analysis presented in Ch. 2 by focusing on political support in advanced industrial societies. The goal is to determine how citizens in these nations judge the democratic process today—is there a popular crisis of democracy? There are two challenges in answering this question: first, there is the conceptual problem about what is meant by ‘political support’ or ‘support for democracy’; and second, there is the empirical problem of assembling the appropriate cross‐national and cross‐temporal data to evaluate claims about changes in public opinion. This chapter addresses both of these topics to provide a framework for assessing public support for democratic politics in advanced industrial societies.

This chapter presents a critique of the standard ANES political trust question, and proposes a percentage measure as an alternative. Given the wide-ranging consequences of political trust, there is understandably a considerable body of scholarly work outlining the determinants of trust. Despite this attention, there remains no consensus on how to measure the underlying concept. The chapter seeks to address this by first analyzing the flaws in the ANES trust question and then using an alternative trust item included on the 2006 ANES Pilot Study to assess different trust measures. These analyses indicate that while neither trust indicator predicts turnout nor vote choice, the percentage measure outperforms the standard trust question in predicting policy attitudes.

The conclusion starts by noting that there are clearly highly diverse trends in the development of bureaucracy in Western Europe, and that, although in some countries patterns of change are quite distinct, change does not appear to have followed any one expected pattern or scale. It then looks at two central questions for the role of bureaucracy: its political controllability and efficiency. These enable us to point to differences in broad underlying principles that reflect how different countries have traditionally understood and dealt with these two central problems, allow us to make important distinctions between different forms of bureaucracies, and explore the causes and character of changes in the senior ranks of post‐war bureaucracies. The two central questions are then examined in sections on political control, performance, managerial changes, and changes in political control. The concluding section finds that there is a common theme underlying the development of relationships between bureaucratic and political elites that applies to most of the country studies: a deinstitutionalization or personalization of political trust. Understood as a question of trust, change in bureaucracy is linked to much wider political changes that have been identified outside the literature on bureaucracy.

The greater the gap between democratic ideals and reality, the greater the resulting tension. This chapter presents a model of tension in a new democracy and applies it to the Republic of Korea (South Korea), drawing on survey data from the 1997 New Korea Barometer. South Korea is particularly suitable for intensive analysis, since the level of mass education is high and commitment to democratic ideals is also high, yet the introduction of free elections in 1987 has produced a succession of presidents whose actions in government have fallen well short of the democratic ideal, leading to convictions on corruption charges. The political fallout of the abuse of power for personal gain was exacerbated in 1997 when the government faced the national humiliation of relying on the biggest International Monetary Fund loan in history to avoid financial collapse and the chapter concludes by considering demand‐driven pressure for reform.

Previous chapters have demonstrated that low and declining citizen respect for government institutions and political leaders is characteristic of contemporary industrialized societies. Evidence since the early 1970s reveals a trend toward growing distrust of government institutions in a number of countries. While this trend is evident, the interpretation of this phenomenon has proved far more controversial. One explanation focuses upon public dissatisfaction with government performance. This chapter explores this question. First, it examines the direct link between government performance, as measured by objective indicators of inflation, unemployment, or government deficits, and institutional confidence in support for government. It then considers the dynamics of political trust and government performance, before moving on to examine the role that expectations play in translating evaluations of government performance into political distrust in three countries where long‐term time‐series data are available—the US, Norway, and Sweden. The study explores how ethical expectations about government standards influence trust in politicians and the conclusion draws some general lessons from the results. The survey data employed in the analysis include the 1990–1 World Values Survey, the Norwegian, Swedish, and US Election Studies, surveys in the US, Russia, Ukraine, and Lithuania; data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and OECD are used to measure inflation, unemployment, and government deficits.

This chapter uses opinion data from the World Values Survey to compare levels of political support across a dozen advanced industrial democracies, and separate the various levels of political support. It then examines several theories for why trust has declined over time.

This chapter examines the consequences of perceived distance and incivility on levels of political trust. It suggests that people may also react to incivility for entirely different, more straightforward reasons. People are all too aware of the banality of shout shows they see on television, and they have made their disgust for this practice well known. If there is consensus that politicians and political advocates are not behaving admirably, then perhaps incivility in political discourse also affects public regard for politics and politicians more generally, despite its lack of any apparent effects on attitudes toward individual favored politicians. Televised portrayals of political conflict have received a particularly severe beating, with some pointing to media reports highlighting conflict as a source of greater political cynicism.

This chapter tracks the changes in political support by generations and social status groups over time. The greatest decline in trust in government and political institutions has come among the better-educated and higher social status, and among younger generations.

This chapter examines the theory that the poor economic performance of government has eroded political support by the citizenry. The analyses examine the relationship between perceptions of the economy and support for government. Using either opinion surveys or timeseries data, there is little evidence that economic performance is a major reason for the decline in political support.

This chapter examines how the changing political values of contemporary publics alter perceived images of government and support for the democratic process. Postmaterialists are less trustful of government and more supportive of democratic values and ideals.

The main goal of this chapter is to use an extensive body of comparative survey research to map patterns and forms of political support across a wide range of political conditions. While the goal is primarily descriptive, at least two themes emerge: first, there are no major trends suggesting a decline in support for democracy as a form of government in the abstract or as applied to existing democratic experience, and certainly, no evidence of a crisis of democracy; second, the fact of dissatisfaction does not imply danger to the persistence or furtherance of democracy. A significant number of people around the world can be labelled ‘dissatisfied democrats’, they clearly approve of democracy as a mode of governance, but they remain discontented with the way their own system is currently operating. This chapter exploits the resources of the World Values Surveys to map certain key elements of political support among the mass publics in established, consolidating, and non‐democracies. Specifically, it develops indices fitted reasonably well to three forms of support: for the political community; for regime principles or democracy as an ideal form of government; and approval of the regime's performance. Attitudes towards these three dimensions are examined through cross‐national surveys.

Assesses the trajectories and dynamics of public support for seven democratizing regimes in Central and Eastern Europe—Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Slovenia—during the first five years following the fall of communism. It begins by offering a reconceptualization of support for new democracies. An examination is then made of popular approval of the new regimes in 1991, shortly following the collapse of communism, and the trajectory of support is tracked through to 1995. Next, a model of the dynamics underlying these trends is developed and tested, paying particular attention to the extent to which support is contingent on political and economic performance. More generally, an exploration is made of whether and to what extent the sources of support change over time as citizens acquire experience with the new regimes.

Taking the example of unified Germany, this chapter examines how a democratic culture can develop among people who have lived for decades in an autocratic state. The first section outlines the theoretical framework, starting with the concept of political support, and going on to consider various normative models of democracy in order to understand what type of democracy people in West and East Germany ultimately prefer. Discusses the formation of democratic attitudes within state‐socialist systems, comparing demonstration and socialization hypotheses on the influence of the social structure on political attitudes. On this basis, expectations about attitudes towards democracy among the East German population are formulated. Develops the empirical analysis further by examining trends in democratic attitudes among West and East Germans—including the commitment to democratic values and principles, support for democratic institutions, and satisfaction with democratic performance. The conclusion summarizes the most important findings and considers their consequences for the prospects of democracy in a unified Germany.