Political Trust in Parties: Concept and Theories

Research Abstract

political trust refers to citizens’ belief and perspectives towards the political parties. From this point comes the questioning about the source of this belief, and what makes the citizen trusts or don’t trust the political parties. That made some theories arise, some refer to party political trust as something gets gained by parties’ efficiency and effectiveness doing their role. Also, some theories refer to party political trust as something gets gained through social growth as related to personal characteristics, and if we agree with this that means there should be a strong relationship between the levels of trust on individual and institutional levels, and also between the levels of trust for the different consistency goals of the society. Finally, this study, for dealing with this issue, handles two main axes, first one examines the definition of party political trust, while the second one sheds more light on the theories that explain the genesis of political trust in parties, referring to the pioneering researches in the field of political trust

Research Keywords

Political Trust, Political Trust in Parties, Social Trust, Interpersonal Trust, Institutional Theories, Cultural Theories, Social Capital