Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: Subnational Contextual Influences on Political Trust

William Marsh Rice University, Houston TX

Investigators

Abstract

What are the sources of political trust? Can the political surroundings in which individuals live shape their feelings of trust in government? Although we hear much about the public's low opinion of the government, we understand little about the structure of the attitudes or how political realities work to shape feelings of trust in government. This dissertation examines the attitudinal components of political trust and the linkage between feelings of governmental trust and the political context in which individuals live. These relationships are analyzed by: (1) the collection of original survey data on citizen attitudes toward local governments on information on local political characteristics, and (2) the use of multi-level analytical techniques to investigate how the context created by various governmental structures and political realities affect the political attitudes of residents. The primary objective of this research is to address a basic question: what types of governmental structures serve to enhance public trust in government? This project develops and tests a theory that links local political characteristics to citizen attitudes toward government. Specifically, the political characteristics surrounding residents are posited to affect their assessments of political outcomes, the political decision-making process, and the people in government. These assessments, in turn, are expected to influence attitudes of political trust. By gathering data on local governmental structures (such as election form and direct democratic mechanisms) and political realities (such as council diversity and partisan competition) from a range of localities, and merging this information with measures of citizen attitudes, the dissertation can determine how variation in citizen attitudes relates to differences in political structures and realities. Findings from this research provide information to the debate about the sources of governmental mistrust as well as insight into how contextual variables can contribute to an understanding of individual-level attitudes.