The Dynamics of Political Trust and Government Performance
So far our tests of the performance hypothesis have been static and cross-national. We have not yet considered the
potential impact of changes in performance on trends in support for political actors within a country. Presumably, as
government performance deteriorates over a period of time we should expect a decline in their support. Unfortunately
little available empirical evidence is suited to testing the performance hypothesis across time. Most survey data are
either limited by dearth of relevant measures or a very short time-series. Fortunately, in a few advanced industrialized
countries—Norway, Sweden, and the United States—the national election studies provide comparable measures of
trust in politicians over a period of about three decades (see Chapters by Dalton and by Holmberg in this volume for a
discussion of these items).
As Figure 10.2 illustrates, even a cursory visual examination of these time-series data confirms a dynamic relationship:
the simple time-series correlation between trust in politicians and performance, without considering lags or any more
sophisticated modelling, for all three countries combined is .47 (p = .01). Yet it is evident from Figure 10.2 that the
correspondence in trends is stronger for Sweden (r = .55) and the United States (.41) than for Norway (.24). The lower
correlation for Norway, however, may not accurately reflect the overall correspondence between the general trend in
trust and performance. When the entire period between 1968 and 1993 is considered, we can conclude that despite
some noticeable ups and downs, trust in Norway has generally remained relatively high and fairly flat compared with
the trends for Sweden and the United States (see Figure 10.2). One could come to exactly the same conclusion when
taking a broader view of the government deficit measure for Norway.
In summary, comparative data from the World Values Survey, and time-series data from Norway, Sweden, and the
United States, suggest that failed government performance directly contributes to declining public support for
government institutions and for politicians even after controlling for economic conditions. This finding helps to
explain some of the cross-national differences in levels ofpolitical support, as well as the dynamics underlying longerterm
trends. Yet if government performance is linked withsupport for political institutions, this link must occur
through the public's evaluations of that performance. Public evaluations, however, involve a number of complexities.
What one person judges as an excellent performance another may regard as relatively poor. It is to an examination of
these complexities of public judgements that we now turn.