Political trust is the degree to which people believe that political institutions, political authorities, elected representatives, governments, or other political actors will behave in ways that meet relevant expectations. It is a broad concept rather than a single attitude towards one institution. Depending on the research question, political trust can refer to confidence in government, parliament, political parties, politicians, public institutions, or the political system.
Scholarly definitions commonly treat it as an evaluative and affective orientation towards political institutions and actors, while some definitions emphasise the expectation that a trusted actor or institution will produce preferred outcomes even when citizens are not directly monitoring every action. Political trust therefore contains an element of uncertainty and expectation: citizens do not merely judge what an institution has already done but form beliefs about how it is likely to behave.
Trust is distinct from simple approval because trust has an important forward looking component. A person may disapprove of a government decision while still believing that the government generally acts within legitimate procedures and can be relied upon to perform its functions. Conversely, a person may approve of a particular policy while believing that the political institution responsible for it is generally untrustworthy. Trust can therefore coexist with criticism.
Scholarly research also distinguishes trust from distrust, arguing that distrust is not necessarily just a numerical absence of trust but can involve a distinct orientation characterised by suspicion or expectations of harmful behaviour. This distinction is useful because a citizen who says that they do not trust government may mean uncertainty, disappointment, scepticism, active suspicion, or a belief that government systematically acts against their interests.
Political trust can be directed towards different objects, and these objects should not be treated as interchangeable. Trust in a national government concerns confidence in the executive authorities currently governing. Trust in Parliament concerns confidence in the legislature. Trust in political parties concerns confidence in party organisations. Trust in politicians concerns individual political actors. Trust in courts, electoral commissions, local authorities, or public services concerns other institutions. A person can trust one institution and distrust another. Research therefore distinguishes vertical trust between citizens and political institutions from horizontal interpersonal trust between individuals. Political trust is also distinct from social trust, which concerns expectations about other people rather than political authorities.
Political trust can be influenced by perceived competence, reliability, responsiveness, fairness, integrity, openness, representation, policy outcomes, procedural fairness, and whether people believe they have meaningful political agency. OECD research identifies responsiveness, reliability, capacity, integrity, fairness, and openness as important dimensions associated with trust in public institutions.
The 2026 OECD survey reports that perceived political agency is closely associated with trust in national government, with people who feel that people like them have a say in government substantially more likely to report higher trust. These findings illustrate that trust is not simply an emotional reaction to individual politicians but can reflect perceptions of institutional processes and whether citizens believe institutions respond to them.
Political trust is partly experiential and partly interpretive. Citizens may form evaluations from personal experiences with public services, taxation, elections, government decisions, political scandals, economic conditions, media coverage, interpersonal discussions, historical experiences, and political socialisation. Trust can also be influenced by general dispositions towards trusting other people and institutions. Recent research explicitly treats trust as both dispositional and relational, meaning that some variation can arise from a person's general tendency to trust while other variation arises from the perceived characteristics of the particular political institution being evaluated. This helps explain why two people exposed to similar political events can report different levels of trust.
Political trust matters because democratic government depends partly on citizens accepting political institutions as sufficiently legitimate and reliable to perform collective functions. Trust can facilitate cooperation, acceptance of public decisions, compliance with policies, participation, and willingness to delegate authority. Low trust does not automatically mean that democracy is failing, because scepticism and criticism can be normal and sometimes valuable aspects of democratic accountability. Political institutions can be scrutinised precisely because citizens do not assume that authorities are automatically correct. The important distinction is between critical evaluation of institutions and a generalised belief that political actors are inherently incapable of acting legitimately or honestly. Scholarly work on political cynicism specifically warns against treating criticism and cynicism as identical concepts.
Political trust can change over time and can become politically polarised. People may report greater trust when their preferred party controls government and lower trust when an opposing party controls it, particularly where partisan identities strongly influence perceptions of political institutions. Research has examined how ideological and affective polarisation relate to political trust, including evidence that greater ideological polarisation can be associated with lower trust under some circumstances.
The relationship is not mechanically identical across countries because electoral systems, party systems, institutional design, political culture, economic circumstances, and the measurement of trust vary. Political trust should therefore be analysed as a multidimensional and context dependent attitude rather than as a universal psychological trait.
Political trust is commonly measured through survey questions asking how much confidence or trust respondents have in particular institutions or political actors. Measurement can use binary, ordinal, or numerical scales, and researchers must distinguish the institution, population, fieldwork period, question wording, and response categories. A national average can conceal substantial differences between partisan groups, socioeconomic groups, generations, regions, or people with different perceptions of political agency. The OECD's current trust research explicitly examines such trust gaps across population groups. Political trust is therefore most informative when its object and measurement are clearly specified. It is not synonymous with approval, satisfaction, legitimacy, compliance, or political participation, although these concepts can be empirically related.
