title: We trust in government, just not in yours: race, partisanship, and political trust, 1958-2012.
abstract: Although it is generally accepted that political trust is reflective of satisfaction with the performance of the incumbent administration, this is only considered true for White Americans. Because their trust reflects a larger discontent with the political system, Black Americans, it is held, do not respond in the same way in the short term. This argument has yet to be tested with over-time data. Time matters. Not only does the race gap in trust change over time but the impact of partisanship and political winning is, by definition, time-dependent. The results of an analysis of the 1958-2012 American National Election Studies data show that Black Americans and White Americans are equally likely to tie short-term performance to trust in government. However, the relationship between partisanship and political trust and, therefore, system discontent, clearly differs for the two groups. Aggregate models that do not take race-partisan sub-group differences into account will therefore be misleading.
authors.affiliation: Department of Sociology, University of British Columbia, 6303 NW Marine Drive, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z1, Canada. Electronic address: wilkesr@mail.ubc.ca.
authors.forename: Rima
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Wilkes
mesh_terms: D044383:Black People; D006076:Government; D006801:Humans; D010549:Personal Satisfaction; D011057:Politics; D044469:Racial Groups; D035502:Trust; D014481:United States; D044465:White People; D001741:Black or African American
keywords: Opinion trends; Partisanship; Political trust; Race