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“Declining Political Trust and a Shrinking Public Policy Agenda”
Marc J. Hetherington Assistant Professor
Department of Government and Legal Studies Bowdoin College
Visiting Fellow
Center for the Study of Democratic Politics Princeton University
This paper was prepared for the Center for the Study of Democratic Politics’ Conference
on Trust in Government. November 30 - December 1, 2001. Princeton University.
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Bill Clinton and Lyndon Johnson share many personal and political
characteristics. Both grew up relatively poor southerners who, despite working for
progressive Democratic presidential candidates in their youth, later ran as political
moderates. Both assumed office under quite favorable political and economic conditions,
with sizable Democratic majorities in Congress and a sizable partisan advantage in the
electorate. Perhaps most consequentially, both presided over spectacular economic
growth. Indeed, reading one year end summary of 1965 generates at least mild deja vu:
“the American economy displayed unprecedented strength, with a soaring stock market,
booming automobile sales, and record personal income and employment.”1
Despite such striking similarities, Johnson and Clinton ultimately pursued vastly
different public policy outcomes. For example, in 1965 alone, the Johnson
Administration unveiled Medicare, created the Department of Housing and Urban
Development, and launched the “War on Poverty.” Johnson later dramatically expanded
the reach of Aid to Families with Dependent Children, made food stamps a permanent
program, increased federal aid to education, and pioneered Head Start. On race, Johnson
engineered the passage of and signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights
Act of 1965, not to mention fair housing and employment statutes. Under Johnson, the
federal government, despite a dangerous cold war and a hot war in Vietnam, used the
favorable political and economic conditions to improve outcomes for those toward the
bottom of the socioeconomic ladder.
Nearly thirty years later, Bill Clinton took the federal government on a much
different course. Even with the many advantages afforded by economic prosperity, 1 Funk and Wagnals (1966).
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Clinton’s accomplishments, particularly post-1994, are best described as “bite-sized.”
After the failure of his large-scale health care initiative, Clinton trumpeted the v-chip,
school uniforms, and putting 100,000 more police on the street. In fact, perhaps the most
significant social policy enacted during the Clinton presidency was the Welfare Reform
Act of 1996, which, by turning Aid to Families with Dependent Children back to the
states, attacked a key element of Johnson’s War on Poverty. These policy outcomes are
quite consistent with Clinton’s proclamation that “The era of big government is over.”
Something fundamental had to change between these two presidencies for two
such similar men in similar circumstances to lead American public policy on such
dissimilar courses. Many political observers suggest a change in the public’s ideology
over the course of thirty years, shifting from a thirst for and belief in government
intervention to an aversion to such activity.
In this paper, I argue that the answer lies not in ideology, which has changed little
over the last thirty years, but in political trust. While ideology has been a constant, the
degree to which the public trusts the federal government has plummeted, and that has
altered what Americans want their government to do. I demonstrate that political trust’s
decline is critical to understanding why elected leaders seem so much less ambitious,
particularly on social and racial policy. Those who don’t trust the government are less
supportive of these types of initiatives. The result has been a noteworthy shrinkage of the
public policy agenda, virtually killing any progressive impulse in American politics.
What is Political Trust
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Most people think political trust is a pretty easy concept until you ask them to
define it. I start with the definition used by more quantitatively-oriented scholars.
Political trust is people’s assessment of how the federal government is doing compared
with how well they think it should be doing (Miller 1974). To put a somewhat finer point
on it, trust is the degree to which people expect that government will provide outputs
consistent with their desires. This suggests that trust has at least two important
components: perceptions of performance (Coleman 1990), and perceptions of its ethics.
People want their government to keep them prosperous and safe, and they want it to do so
in an above-board manner.
One might consider this definition mathematically as the ratio of people’s
perceptions of government performance over their expectations of how the government
ought to perform (Orren 1997).
Perceptions of Performance ----------------------------------- Expectations of Performance
Of course, people’s expectations are generally high, likely the results of over-promising
politicians, which makes the denominator quite large, and their perceptions of
government performance usually fall short of expectations. This means the numerator
will almost always be significantly smaller than the denominator. Since performance
rarely meets expectations, maintaining high levels of political trust is next to impossible.
A key term in this ratio is perceptions. They are clearly more important than
objective measures of performance. Bok (1997) demonstrates that, while there are areas
where it could improve, the federal government has done a reasonably good job in the
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administration and provision of services since the 1960s. At a very minimum, people’s
view of government is far dimmer than its actual performance would predict. Moreover,
sunshine laws have made government much less corrupt than it was in the 1950s and
1960s. As is often the case in politics, the perception of government performance is more
important than the reality.
Rival Explanations: Why Conservatism Is Not the Answer
Those who study American public opinion do so because they think it has some
impact on political outcomes. This is normatively appealing; the voice of the governed in
a democracy ought to affect the decisions made by those who govern them (Dahl 1956;
Arrow 1963). Especially in an era so consumed by the use of public opinion data, it also
makes good common sense. Office holders, who always think they are more vulnerable
than they really are, want to give their constituents what they want. This implies that
office holders will most often try to follow rather than lead public opinion.
Empirically, political scientists have provided ample evidence that public opinion
affects public policy. In examining government outputs between 1935 and 1979, Page
and Shapiro (1983) found that changes in public opinion often led changes in government
policy across a range of important issues, particularly when public opinion on an issue
changed by more than 20 percentage points. In these cases, government policy followed
the direction of public opinion 90 percent of the time.
Taking a somewhat different tack, Stimson (1999) demonstrates what he refers to
as policy moods, which ebb and flow in seemingly conservative and liberal directions.
Stimson’s measure of policy mood is a combination of public policy preferences across a
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wide range of issues. A favorable policy mood may provide leaders the opportunity to
pursue an aggressive policy course as Ronald Reagan did in the early 1980s when
presented with a conservative one. Policy moods can also constrain elites. Ideologues
can’t “push too far” without risking a reversal to the public’s policy mood. For example,
as Reagan continued to push his conservative agenda, the conservative policy mood that
provided his early success turned more liberal, forcing him to be less aggressive.
The importance of public opinion in policy making shows up on the state level as
well. Erickson, Wright, and McIver (1993) demonstrate that states that have
constituencies with more conservative policy preferences provide more conservative
policies than states that have constituencies with more liberal preferences. On assistance
to the poor, for instance, more conservative southern states tend to be the least generous
while more liberal northern states are the most generous.
Each of these treatments of how public opinion affects policy outputs seems to
have ideology at its core. How liberal or conservative the public is helps to determine
how liberal or conservative policy outputs will be. That ideology might play such a
central role is somewhat curious. If there is one thing political scientists who study
public opinion can agree upon, it is that the public is, to use Kinder’s (1983) terms,
“innocent of ideology.” Only a small percentage of Americans organize their thoughts
about politics in ideological terms (Converse 1964). Hence it is difficult to imagine that
ideology is at the root of all, or even much, public opinion change.
Even so, such focus on ideology is widespread both in scholarly and journalistic
circles. Perhaps this is because media elites tend to frame election outcomes in terms of
ideology. After almost every presidential election, and even after some midterm
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elections like 1994, pundits turn to some discussion of the country’s ideological mood.
Even on its face, the frequency of the supposed ideological shifts suggests something
other than ideology. Since ideology is a durable attitude socialized from parent to child
early in life (Jennings and Niemi 1968), real changes in American’s ideological
preferences should last far longer than a few years. True ideological change in the
electorate does occur at times, but, if people’s ideological beliefs carry any meaning, they
should not change back and forth willy-nilly with nearly each election.
But that is exactly what political watchers seem to suggest. Did 1980 represent an
ideological “right turn,” with the public expressing more conservative preferences? This
seemed plausible, given Reagan’s sweeping reelection in 1984, but Stimson’s work
suggests that the conservative policy mood was short-lived. Was 1992 a return to
moderation with the election of a southern Democrat? This seemed plausible, too, but the
Democrats’ sweeping defeat in the House and Senate only two years later suggests
otherwise. Did 1994 auger in a conservative revolution, with the right wing of the
Republican Party seizing control and winning a majority of seats in both the House and
Senate for the first time since the 1950s? At the time, it seemed a good bet, until 1996,
when Bill Clinton thumped Bob Dole. Two years after that, the Democrats managed to
gain seats in a sixth-year midterm election even with their leader facing impeachment, an
outcome without precedent. So much for the conservative revolution.
Is the public opinion actually more conservative than it was a generation or two
ago? And, even if public opinion has moved to the ideological right, does an increase in
conservatism make sense as an explanation for what Americans today want and don’t
want the government to do? The answer to both questions is a resounding “no.”
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While the changes in the opinion environment over the last generation may appear
to be ideological, they aren’t really. Consider what philosophical conservatives want.
Except for social conservatives, who I will leave aside, traditional conservatives desire
less federal involvement and more local control. With few exceptions, such as spending
on defense and crime, this desire runs across the board. While the story is certainly more
complicated at times, it is generally true that conservatives believe that more government
means less freedom and less efficiency, so federal intervention should be resisted. This
suggests that increased conservatism would increase the desire for less government in
almost all areas. This is not the case.
Political trust is a more attractive explanation for the changes that have occurred
in public policy over the last 35 years than conservatism for at least three reasons. First
trust is relatively easier for ordinary people to use. People needn’t be political experts to
know whether they trust the government, while developing an ideology requires a lot of
cognitive heavy lifting. Once developed, trust can serve as a simple decision rule for
whether the person wants the government involved in a policy area or not. If, other
things equal, people perceive the architect of policies untrustworthy, they will reject its
policies; if they consider it trustworthy, they will embrace them.
Second, political trust is a more attractive explanation than ideology because it
squares better with changes in Americans’ policy preferences. People still want the
federal government involved in a wide range of areas from transportation to care for the
elderly to schools to the environment. Indeed, while less government sounds good in
principle to many, it is less appealing in practice when it could result in bumpier
interstate highways, poorer and sicker grandparents, dirtier air and water, and worse
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schools. People really only want less government in areas where they do not or will not
benefit from federal involvement, which is only part of what conservatives want.
Increasing government distrust should undermine support for government action
only in areas that demand sacrifices from many ordinary Americans, not in all areas of
public policy. If people pay for a program but receive nothing in return, it is necessary
for them to trust that the government will administer the program well and fairly. Trust,
however, is theoretically less important when people receive direct benefits. People do
not need to trust the government much if they know they are going to receive its aid.
Thus, a lack of trust advantages conservatives, but it should not be confused with
programmatic conservatism.
Third, even the seemingly ideological character of Stimson’s policy moods is
driven not by changes in philosophical conservatism but rather by changes in political
trust (Chanley, Rudolph, and Rahn 2000). When the public trusts the government more,
the policy mood swings to the left, making the public appear more liberal. When the
public is distrustful, the policy mood swings to the right, making the public appear more
conservative. This is so even when Republicans occupy the White House and the more
trustful people will tend to be Republicans and conservatives. More trust always means a
more liberal policy mood.
In sum, I argue that people don’t like government involvement simply because
they don’t trust it to do things well or fairly, not because they are more conservative.
This is a distinction of great import because political trust better tracks the contours of
where people want and don’t want government involvement than does conservatism.
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Evidence that People are Not More Conservative
There is no evidence of an ideological “right turn” since the 1960s (see also
Stimson 1999; Mayer 1993). Longitudinal data taken from the National Election Study
(NES) illustrates this point graphically using several different formulations of
conservatism. Every election year, the NES asks people to place themselves on a seven-
point scale ranging from extremely liberal to extremely conservative. Figure 1 reflects
how the average score to this item, which I call conservatism, has changed over time.2
The line is basically flat. If you compare the beginning and ending points of the series,
conservatism has increased by a mere 2 percentage points. Such modest movement
could not bring about the fundamental change in what the public wants, or, more to the
point, doesn’t want, the federal government to do.
(Figure 1 About Here)
The story is the same for several alternative measures of ideology. Specifically, I
also examined people’s self-placement on a range of different issues. In each presidential
election year between 1984 and 2000, the NES has asked people to place themselves on
seven-point scales that reflect their preferences on the government’s role in providing
health insurance, government aid to minorities, government guarantees of employment
and standard of living, women’s rights, the proper level of government services and
spending, and defense spending. I combine people’s responses to these six items
additively and take the mean. The line tracking opinions to these items over time, labeled
“issue scale mean,” also appears in Figure 1. Like liberal-conservative self-placement,
2 The NES only started to ask the conservatism question in 1972. I would not expect that conservatism would have changed radically between the mid-1960s and early 1970s.
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the difference between the means is substantively small. In fact, the movement is in the
liberal direction. Clearly, no evidence of a right turn appears in these data either.
Perhaps most of the movement took place before 1984. Since most of the issue
questions debuted in the 1980s, I may be missing the period where rapid change to the
right took place. Fortunately, the NES has asked the government guaranteed job and
standard of living question since 1972, which should capture the ideological drift if one
occurred. As is also clear from Figure 1, responses to this question provide no evidence
of a right turn. To the extent that the mean to this item has varied, it also has moved in
the liberal direction. In short, I find no evidence of an ideological right turn.
Some might still argue that the null results are a function of the survey questions.
Political scientists have known for generations that Americans know frighteningly little
about politics (see Converse 1964; Luskin 1987), which is often manifested in middle
category responses. Hence it is possible that we would not see much change in ideology
over time because many people are registering nonattitudes at the center of the scale.
Partisanship might tell a different story. People are not inclined to the middle
category for this measure. However, the bottom line in Figure 1 suggests that
Republicanism has not moved much either. Although there has been a slight rightward
drift in the mean score since 1964, it is only on the order of about 7 percentage points.
Moreover, with Barry Goldwater at the top of the ticket, 1964 was the Republicans worst
year since the NES started asking people about their partisanship in 1952. In fact, the
mean Republicanism score in 1960 is only a half a percentage point lower than the mean
in 2000, a statistically insignificant difference.
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This brings me to a critically important but often neglected theoretical digression.
When political scientists use cross-sectional data – data collected at a single point in time
from a single group of respondents – they most often highlight the stability of attitudes as
evidence of their exogeniety. Cross-sectional data provide no obvious temporal ordering
because all attitudes are measured at the same time. The best survey researchers can do
is offer theories of causal ordering. It makes good theoretical sense that more stable
attitudes are causally prior to less stable attitudes.
While useful, this emphasis on stability has important limitations. Absent stark
changes caused by generational replacement or some critical event, the distribution of
variables that are stable on the individual level will tend to remain relatively stable in the
aggregate. That is, if individuals tend not to change their partisanship or ideology much,
the distribution of partisanship and ideology within a population of these individuals will
not change either, leaving basically the same number of Republicans and conservatives.
Static attitudes might serve as very good explanations for other phenomena in a cross-
sectional survey, but, if their distribution does not change in the aggregate, they cannot
tell us much about why other things change over time.
This brings to mind an old saw in data analysis: you can’t explain a variable with
a constant. That is, if you want to understand why something important has changed, you
cannot rely on things that haven’t changed as explanations. We have seen the policy
agenda shrink substantially between the 1960s and the 1990s. Although it is true that
those who are more conservative and Republican in a given cross-sectional survey are
less supportive of government spending and policy innovation (see e.g. Jacoby 1994),
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Figure 1 shows the percentage of Republicans and conservatives has not increased
substantially since the 1960s. Hence neither can explain the change in the policy agenda.
Evidence that People Don’t Truly Want a Limited Government
A second reason that an ideological right turn could not be behind the shrinkage
in the policy agenda since the 1960s is reflected in the pattern of public support for
government involvement in specific areas. This, in turn, affects the areas where federal
policy makers will be less aggressive. Americans are not interested in seeing less
government across the board. Indeed, they are even open to more government in some
areas, such as ensuring the security of its citizens. In a poll taken September 27, 2001 by
Time-CNN-Harris, 77 percent of Americans reported that they have more confidence in
the federal government than in private enterprise to provide airport security.
In contrast, many Americans would like to see reductions in programs designed to
benefit the poor, particularly programs that have been racialized by the mass media and
political leaders, such as welfare and food stamps (Gilens 1999). In fact, the gap between
support for redistributive spending and spending on programs that benefit most
Americans has been widening until recently. I show the nature of the gap graphically
between what I refer to as distributive and redistributive spending preferences in Figure
2. When I use the term distributive programs, I have in mind programs that benefit most,
if not all, Americans. Redistributive programs are different in that they have specific
target groups, usually those at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder.
(Figure 2 About Here)
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Since 1984, the NES has asked Americans questions about whether they would
increase, decrease, or keep spending the same on a range of different programs, some
distributive and some redistributive. Since I am interested in people’s hostility toward
government programs, I present the percentage of people who answer that they would
prefer decreased spending on these items.
First note that the lines tracking the public’s desire for decreased spending on
distributive programs are clustered at the bottom of the figure. Only once do as many as
10 percent of Americans want to take such a step on any of these programs, spending on
the environment in 1994, a somewhat anomalous year. I cannot even present results for
all distributive programs that the NES asks about because it produces so many lines
between 5 and 10 percentage points that it makes reading the figure impossible. I should,
however, report that the same lack of desire for federal spending reductions holds for
other items like crime reduction, financial aid for college students, and childcare. When
most benefit, very few Americans want to reduce federal spending.
Second, note that the lines for distributive spending programs are all relatively
flat, suggesting that an increased desire for less spending has not occurred as a result of
the purported ideological “right turn” or “Republican Revolution”. This is of
consequence. If ideology was at the core of opinion change over the last couple decades,
the distributions for the distributive items would reflect a desire for less spending because
conservatives want less involvement from the federal government in all areas from
schools to the environment to social security. Indeed, all of the measures of conservatism
that I present in Figure 1 are significantly correlated with almost all these spending
preferences, with conservatives desiring less spending than moderates and liberals. This
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means that, had Americans become more conservative, the desire for spending reductions
would have increased across the board. Obviously, it hasn’t, further evidence that
conservatism is not the answer to the puzzle.
Contrast the findings for distributive programs with those for programs for which
most people expect to receive little direct benefit, such as food stamps, welfare, and
foreign aid. A significantly higher percentage of people would prefer that the federal
government spend less on these programs than on more distributive matters. In fact,
more often than not, a plurality of Americans has supported spending cuts on these
programs since the mid-1980s.
In sum, ideology does not explain the shrinkage of the public policy agenda.
First, I have demonstrated that there is no indication of an ideological right turn in
American politics. No measure of the public’s conservatism has increased more than
marginally over the last thirty years. Second, even if a right turn had occurred, the
pattern of support for federal government involvement in different policy areas over time
is not consistent with such an ideological change. Most people still want to maintain or
even increase federal spending in most areas, something true conservatives do not
support. Americans have only turned against redistributive spending.
Why Political Trust is the Answer
Just because ideology is not the answer does not mean that public opinion is
inconsequential. In fact, public attitudes are important, but we need to examine potential
explanations carefully. Any explanation must meet two criteria. First, the attitude must
have changed significantly and in the proper direction over time. Second, it must be
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correlated with support for spending on redistributive matters, because people are less
generous on them, but it must not be correlated with support for distributive matters,
where support has remained constant.
Political trust is the only political attitude that fits the bill. Political trust has
declined precipitously since the 1960s, a trend captured in Figure 3. Compared with the
inconsequential changes in ideology and partisanship, political trust dropped by roughly
30 percent between the mid-1960s and mid-1990s, reaching its absolute nadir in 1994.
Compared with other political attitudes, a change of this magnitude can only be
considered an earthquake. Moreover, political trust recovered to some degree in the late
1990s, the same period when support for redistributive spending recovered to some
degree. Since we would expect more distrust to cause less support for government
involvement and more trust to cause more support, the changes in political trust over time
meet the first criterion.
(Figure 3 About Here)
In addition, the amount that people trust the government should only matter in
understanding support for programs that require sacrifice. Distributive policies provide
individuals with direct tangible benefits. Even highly distrustful people are likely to
support continued spending on Social Security knowing that they either receive or will
receive government funds. Perhaps the government is inefficient and unethical, but that
ought to matter less when a monthly check arrives in the mail. The same argument holds
for things like clean air and drinking water, good schools, safe streets, and good roads.
Political trust should not be correlated with support for distributive programs.
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Contrast that with policies which offer no discernible, immediate benefit and
which may demand sacrifices. Political trust should be very important for such policies.
When all people know for certain is that they will not readily or materially gain from a
policy, it is essential that they trust the agent asking such sacrifice. Since redistributive
programs fall into this category, political trust meets the second criterion as well.
To the extent that Americas appear more conservative, it is because redistributive
programs offered by the left generally use the government to deliver services. If people
don’t trust the delivery system and, therefore, don’t want it involved in providing policy
solutions, it limits the range of possibilities available to liberals. In short, political trust is
unchallenged in helping us understand why progressive policies have been on the wane in
the United States since the end of the Great Society years.
When Political Trust Should be Important
While political trust ought not affect all opinions and behaviors equally, it should
have sizable effects on people’s support for policies that provide them no direct benefit.
People will need to trust the government to support programs that ask them to contribute
their money or give up their favored status for others. When all an individual knows for
certain is that he or she will not readily or materially gain from a policy, it is essential
that the individual trusts the agent asking such sacrifice. In other words, when one’s self
or group interest is at stake, one will need to trust the government to support a
government-sponsored policy.
I should note that scholars have consistently shown that the effects of measures of
self-interest pale in comparison to those of symbolic attitudes such as partisanship,
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ideology, racial attitudes (e.g., Kinder and Sears 1981; Sears et al. 1978), findings I do
not dispute. I am offering a bit of a twist on this scholarly exchange. Political trust is
another symbolic attitude also arrived at early in life (Krosnick 1991), and it should
interact with self- or group-interest with the magnitude of trust’s effect dependent upon
the degree to which a person perceives that a policy encroaches on his or her self- or
group-interest. So, policies that everyone benefits from, such as environmental spending
or national defense, will not activate political trust. Neither anyone’s self- nor group-
interest is at stake. In the case of spending on welfare, however, the non-poor will need
to trust the government to support generous spending on such programs because the non-
poor only pay the costs and receive no direct benefit. Although a society with less
poverty will be a healthier one, a person has to believe that government spending will
actually bring about this outcome to support such spending.
Information Processing and Political Trust
Information processing theories are also important in explaining why trust should
have an important impact on American politics. These theories suggest that at least two
criteria be met for people’s political attitudes to be of consequence in explaining political
phenomena. First, people actually have to possess the attitude. The more difficult and
abstract the concepts, the more likely survey researchers are to find nonattitudes. Like
party identification, trust in government is a simple concept, which almost all people will
express true attitudes about. Although people may update how much they trust the
government based on things that they learn, their baseline feelings are arrived at on a gut
level.
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In that sense, trust is more affective than cognitive. This is of consequence
because affective attitudes are more likely to drive political change than cognitive ones.
For instance, racial issues, which people reason about on the gut level, forged a new set
of party alignments in the 1960s, with the Democrats becoming the party supporting civil
rights most vigorously (Carmines and Stimson 1989).3 Such a movement would likely
not have occurred over inflation policy. Indeed, the affective character of party
identification made it attractive to the University of Michigan researchers in the 1950s as
the key attitude in Americans’ political belief systems (see Campbell et al. 1960).
In short, trust meets the first criterion for an attitude to affect public opinion and
political behavior. Since it is easily developed, almost everyone will have real attitudes
about government trustworthiness. Moreover, trust is easy to use. Other things equal, if
people perceive the architect of policies untrustworthy, they will reject its policies; if they
consider it trustworthy, they will be more inclined to embrace them.
The second criterion that an attitude must meet is that it must be accessible.
When political elites talk about certain things, usually through the news media, it primes
people to evaluate the political world using these considerations (see Iyengar and Kinder
1987). If the news media talk about the economy, then ordinary Americans will tend to
evaluate their leaders based on their perceptions of the economy. If elite discussion
moves to a scandal, then people will evaluate their leaders based on the scandal. The
more often an attitude is primed, the more likely people are to access it. This, in turn,
will make that attitude more influential in helping people form other opinions.
Political trust should certainly be accessible to most Americans in today’s
political climate. Media references to trust in government are ubiquitous. Television 3 Carmines and Stimson use the terms easy and hard to make basically the same distinction.
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news, the public’s most important information staple, is disproportionately negative
(Patterson 1993). Regular features like the Fleecing of America, Reality Check, and Your
Money, Your Choice, all of which uncover some form of government waste or
malfeasance, cut to the core of what political trust means. The dominant game schema
reporting style, moreover, regularly portrays politicians’ motives as disingenuous, further
encouraging people to question those in the political world (Capella and Jamieson 1997).
Furthermore, Neuman, Just, and Crigler (1992) find that government powerlessness is
among the dominant news frames used on network news. Since government
effectiveness is one component of political trust, media portrayal of leaders as incapable
of confronting political challenges should prime trust orientations.
In a broader sense, both the news and popular culture present politics today as a
game of deception perpetrated by office-holders on ordinary citizens (Hart 1994). For
those who avoid political news, anti-Washington messages are pervasive elsewhere. A
recent study reports that better than 10 percent of Americans say that they receive at least
some political information from late night talk shows, and close to half of those under 30
do (Pew Foundation 2000). Those turning in to these and other pop culture outlets find
talk show hosts like Jay Leno and David Letterman constantly questioning the ability and
ethics of those in political life. Although these portrayals are often very entertaining,
they will, at best, serve to keep people’s trust considerations at the tops of their heads,
and, at worst, further undermine public confidence. In short, the present political
dialogue primes people to think about politics and policies in terms of how much they
trust the federal government.
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Explaining Support for Government Spending
I have made much of the distributions of support for government spending
displayed in Figure 2, and I have laid out a theory for why political trust should help
explain changes in what people what the government to do today. I next need to test my
hypotheses in a multivariate context.
What shapes individual preferences for government spending on different
policies? Given constraints on voter knowledge and on the ability of voters to determine
their optimum level of spending (Simon 1985), scholars do not expect citizens to express
absolute preferences for levels of spending. Instead, the question is what factors tend to
increase or decrease relative preferences for spending.
Earlier work has emphasized the importance of symbolic variables and self-
interest, with the symbolic playing by far the larger role. Specifically, traditionally
conceived left-right ideology (Jacoby 1994; Kluegel 1990; Kluegel and Smith 1986; Pan
and Kosicki 1996), and party identification (Converse and Marcus 1979; Elliot et al.
1997; Page and Jones 1979) all affect spending preferences with those on the political left
more inclined to support spending and those on the right inclined to oppose it.
Several demographic factors that fall broadly under the rubric of group and self-
interest also predict support for government spending. Members of certain racial groups
(Pan and Kosicki 1996), urban residents (Elliot et al. 1997; Howell and Laska 1992), and
older Americans (Rhodebeck 1993) tend to be more supportive of social spending when
it is designed to benefit to their group (see also Sears et al. 1980). In addition, self-
interest is reflected in the fact that those with high incomes are less supportive of
redistributive spending than those with low incomes but are more supportive of programs
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that benefit them (Evans 1992; Inniss and Sittig 1996). Age, gender, and education also
can affect spending preferences (see Elliot et al. 1997; Pan and Kosicki 1996).
Another key source of variation in support for spending is how people feel about
the group that will benefit from government spending, with feelings about racial groups
particularly influential. Pan and Kosicki (1996) find that feelings about blacks have a
significant effect on support for spending on federal programs to assist blacks (see also
Kinder and Sanders 1986), and Gilens (1999) finds that anti-black stereotypes are the
most significant predictors of support for spending on redistributive programs like
welfare. Such stereotypes have this effect on even non-race based redistributive
programs because Americans tend to view blacks as the beneficiaries of such spending.
Scholars have also shown that economic evaluations are influential. When people
perceive that economic circumstances have improved, they are sometimes more
supportive of government spending (Rhodebeck 1993; Wlezien 1995) and social
assistance to those in need (Skitka and Tetlock 1992, 1993).
Data
To test my hypotheses, I use data from the 1992, 1994, and 1996 National
Election Studies. Over these years, the NES asked nearly two dozen questions to tap
Americans’ spending preferences in many different areas. Due to space considerations, I
cannot present the data analysis for all these items. I confine the material I present to
questions that have been asked in multiple studies or those that speak most centrally to
my hypotheses. So, for instance, I do not present the results from a 1992 model
explaining support for spending on science and technology because it neither was asked
22
more than once by the NES nor does it bear directly on my hypotheses about how trust
ought to affect spending preferences.4
Measurement
The dependent variables that I include in my analysis are spending on social
security, crime prevention, environmental protection, financial aid for college students,
public schools, child care, the poor, food stamps, welfare, cities, and to assist blacks.
Each are measured the same way. The NES asks respondents “if you had a say in making
up the federal budget this year, for which of the following programs would you like to
see spending increased and for which would you like to see spending decreased. Should
federal spending on _______ be increased, decreased, or kept about the same? I code
responses advocating an increase as 1, those advocating a decrease as 0, and those
advocating keeping spending the same as .5.
Political trust is the respondent’s level of political trust, as measured by the mean
of the National Election Study’s four item trust index. Partisanship is the respondent’s
self-placement on the seven point scale, conservatism is the mean score of the
respondent’s self-placement on six seven-point scale items that the NES asked in all three
studies: health insurance, government guaranteed job and standard of living, government
services and spending, aid to minorities, women’s rights and defense spending. Economic
evaluation is the respondent’s assessment of economic conditions in the previous year.
As for the social characteristics, age is the respondent’s age in years, race is a
dummy variable for whether the respondent is an African-American, and gender is a
4 I might note that trust does have a significant effect on this item. Given that the beneficiary group is not clear, it is plausible to think that many might view spending in this area as requiring a sacrifice from which they might not benefit.
23
dummy for whether the respondent is a woman. Income is the respondent’s self-reported
family income, broken into intervals of $15,000, and education is the highest level of
education achieved by the respondent.
When appropriate, I include a variable to tap whether or not the respondent is a
member of the beneficiary group. For spending on financial aid to college students,
public schools, and child care, I code a person as part of the beneficiary group if they
report having children under 18 year old. For spending on the poor, food stamps, and
welfare, I code a person as part of the beneficiary group if their family income is less than
$15,000 a year. And, for spending on cities, I code a person as part of the beneficiary
group if they report living in a metropolitan area.
Several of the items, specifically spending on food stamps, welfare, cities, and to
assist blacks have been racialized (Gilens 1999). Hence people’s feelings about blacks
should affect their spending preferences. To tap anti-black stereotypes, I use people’s
self-placement on a seven point scale rating the industriousness of blacks. Lazy is at the
low end and hard-working is at the high end of the scale.5
To ease interpretation, I map all independent variables onto (0,1) intervals. Since
each of the dependent variables are also measured on (0,1) intervals, effects can be
interpreted as the percentage change in the dependent variable caused by moving an
independent variable across its range. I estimate each of the models, somewhat
inappropriately given the ordinal nature of the dependent variables, using OLS. I should
report that the results are substantively equivalent if I use ordered logit or probit instead.
Functionally, the baseline models take the following form:
5 In 1994, the NES did not ask this question. In its place, I substitute the racial resentment battery (see Kinder and Sanders 1996 for details).
24
Spending Preference = f(Political Trust, Conservatism, Partisanship, Rejection of Anti-
Black stereotypes(when appropriate), economic evaluation, social characteristics,
membership in beneficiary group (when appropriate)). (1)
Of course, I have also suggested that political trust’s effect ought to be
conditioned by certain other variables. For programs like public schools, for example,
political trust should be most necessary to the people who are paying costs and receiving
no direct benefits. Specifically, I have in mind those who do not have school-aged
children. Trust should theoretically be less necessary for people who are paying costs
and receiving direct benefits. In this case, I have in mind those who do have school-aged
children. Obviously, the former group is actually making the sacrifice while the latter
group is not. This hypothesis suggests an interaction between political trust and whether
the respondent is a member of the beneficiary group.
Similarly, if people see their self or group’s interest being threatened by spending
on a minority group that they perceives is lazy, it will require that them to trust the
government much more to support government spending than if people think well of the
minority group. Hence, the need for trust for spending on redistributive programs ought
to be contingent on how people feel about the perceived beneficiary group. As Gilens
(1999) convincingly demonstrates, public support for programs like welfare and food
stamps is largely a function of people’s negative stereotypes about African-Americans. If
people carry negative stereotypes of African-Americans’ work ethic, then it will require a
great deal of trust that the government can handle this situation. While trust still ought to
25
matter when people think more highly of the beneficiary group because a sacrifice is still
being asked, trust ought to matter somewhat less. This hypothesis suggests an interaction
between political trust and the rejection of anti-black stereotypes.
Hence the models containing the appropriate interactions take the following form:
Spending Preference = f(Political Trust, Conservatism, Partisanship, Rejection of Anti-
Black stereotypes(when appropriate), economic evaluation, social characteristics,
membership in beneficiary group (when appropriate), Political Trust * Rejection
of Anti-Black Stereotypes, Political Trust * membership in beneficiary group)
(2)
I should also note that previous research has sometimes treated ideology and
partisanship as endogenous to spending preferences (Rhodebeck 1993; see also Franklin
1984). The effect of the latter variables on the former, however, is substantially larger
than the reverse. Since the degree of simultaneity is marginal, the estimated effects of a
recursive model should be relatively accurate. To the degree that there is a discrepancy,
the recursive model will likely give greater weight to ideology and partisanship at the
expense of other variables. Should trust prove to be a significant predictor of spending
preferences under these circumstances, the result is all the more impressive.
Some might also suggest that trust and spending preferences are simultaneously
related. Theoretically, it is more plausible that an underlying orientation, such as trust, is
causally prior to a person forming his or her spending preferences. Empirically, I have
shown elsewhere (Hetherington 1997; Hetherington and Globetti 2002) that spending
26
preferences—which should not be confused with policy preferences—have no effect on
trust once partisan considerations, economic evaluations, and affect for institutions are
taken into account. Furthermore, Chanley, Rudolph, and Rahn (2000) show that trust is
predictive of policy mood, but not vice versa. Hence I estimate recursive models.
Results
I first present the results for the models of support for distributive spending.
Political trust should have no effect on support for spending on programs like social
security, crime prevention, and environmental protection because everyone does or will
benefit. As expected, it does not. This result is encouraging. Since political trust has
declined markedly over time and since support for spending in these areas has remained
relatively constant, it would have been a problem for my argument if trust affected
spending preferences in these areas.
In contrast, conservatism is almost always a significant predictor of support for
distributive spending with those who are more conservative much less supportive of
spending than those who are less conservative. Of course, this is a problem for
conservatism as an explanation for the changing contours of the public policy agenda. If
public opinion in the U.S. had, in fact, become more conservative, these results suggest
that we should have seen a significant reduction in support for spending on social security
and environmental protection as time has passed. We have seen no such reduction.
(Table 1 About Here)
I move now to public support for spending on programs that require sacrifice of
some people, but the beneficiary groups are large and inclusive. The programs that I
27
have in mind are spending on financial aid for college students, public schools, child
care, and the poor. For each, less than 15 percent of Americans desire spending cuts, and
this percentage is most often below 10. As expected, the effect of political trust is either
relatively small or nonexistent on support for these programs, achieving statistical
significance in only three of ten cases. In contrast, variables such as conservatism and
partisanship exert large effects across the board, which is again bad news for them as
explanations for changes in desire for government involvement. Had these variables
changed significantly, it would suggest that support for these programs would have dried
up significantly over time, something that has not occurred.
(Table 2 About Here)
If my hypothesis that sacrifice activates political trust is correct, however,
political trust might have an effect among the people paying the costs for the programs
but not for those benefiting from them. The models containing the interactive terms from
Equation (2) will tell the story. For financial aid, public schools, and child care, trust
should have a significant effect on spending preferences among those who do not have
children and a smaller effect among those who do. For spending on the poor, trust should
have a significant effect on the non-poor’s preferences, but its effect should be smaller
among those who are poor because they would be the recipients of federal money.
Despite the fact that my measures of the beneficiary group are so crude, I still
generally find this pattern of results, which I present in Table 3. In all four cases, the
effect of political trust is statistically significant among those who are asked to pay the
costs of these programs, either those with no children under 18 or those who make more
than $15,000 a year. Moreover, the sign on the interaction between trust and the
28
beneficiary group is almost always negatively signed, indicating that the effect of trust is
less among beneficiaries of federal spending than among non-beneficiaries. The only
place where the theory fails is for public schools where the sign on the interaction is
positive but not significant.
(Table 3 About Here)
Thus far, the theory has held up fairly well. When sacrifice is required of some
people, trust becomes important. Extending this reasoning, I should find that political
trust has larger effects on support for spending on programs that have relatively small and
not well thought of beneficiary groups.
Among the items that the NES asked in the years of my study, spending on
welfare, food stamps, cities, and to assist blacks fall into this category. Recall from
Figure 2 that the public is much less supportive of these types of programs than those that
have larger and better thought of beneficiaries. Not only that, the gap in support for these
redistributive programs and other programs increased dramatically between the mid-
1980s and mid-1990s. Since political trust declined during this period, it is a potential
explanation.
The results from these models appear in Table 4. Again, they conform to
expectations. Over the three years of study, the NES asked these items on eight
occasions. Political trust significantly helps to explain people’s spending preferences in 7
of the 8 cases, with the only exception food stamps in 1992. As expected, its effect on
support for these policies is considerably larger and more consistent than for those with
more inclusive and better thought of beneficiaries.
(Table 4 About Here)
29
Further evidence that supports the sacrifice hypothesis is found in Table 5. Here,
I present interactions between political trust and the degree to which people believe that
blacks are lazy or hard-working. As I noted above, Gilens (1999) demonstrates that
people desire less spending on redistributive programs largely because they perceive the
beneficiary group to be black and they perceive blacks to be lazy. Trust in government
should be very necessary to people who think blacks, the perceived beneficiary group, are
lazy. Otherwise, these people will be inclined to think that the money will be wasted on
an undeserving group. In contrast, if respondents think the beneficiary group is hard-
working, trust should be less necessary. Industrious people will presumably do
responsible things with the government’s money.
(Table 5 About Here)
This is exactly the pattern of results that I find. For each of the four dependent
variables included in the 1992 study, the main effect for political trust is positive and
significant.6 This means that, when the rejection of anti-black stereotypes variable is near
0 (in other words, when people think blacks are lazy), political trust’s effect is very large.
As an example, consider the preferences for federal government spending to assist blacks
among those who rate blacks as most lazy. A person who is most trustful of government
will be about thirty percentage points more supportive of government spending on blacks
than someone who is least trustful of government.
The negative sign on the interaction is also important for the sacrifice hypothesis.
That it is always negative and almost always at least approaching statistical significance
6 I should note that I confine my analysis of the interactions to 1992 for good reason. Scholars have often suggested that political trust is problematically colored by partisan and ideological predispositions, although the correlation between trust and these measures is always less than .10. In 1992, however, the correlation between political trust and liberal-conservative self-placement is .00, which make data from this year particularly useful since there is no ideological coloration.
30
means that, as people take an increasingly positive view of blacks’ industriousness,
political trust’s effect diminishes. This means that those who think highly of the
perceived beneficiary group do not need to trust the government to support spending,
which makes sense since the perceived sacrifice will seem less for this group.
Although I have not made much of federal spending outside the U.S., it also bears
on my theory. In fact, it allows a critical test. Since spending abroad requires sacrifice
by almost all Americans, nearly everyone will need to trust the government to support it.
Hence trust’s effect here should be stronger in this domain than any other. And, as
expected, this turns out to be the case with the results appearing in Table 6. Among the
three foreign items, the median effect of political trust is .214 or better than twice that of
the racialized programs. These results further suggest the importance of political trust
when sacrifice is necessary.
(Table 6 About Here)
Conclusion
Progressivism in the U.S. has died, and declining political trust is the culprit. The
pattern of results presented here suggests that political trust has moved in the correct
direction over time, it affects the right variables, and it does not affect the wrong ones,
which makes it an attractive explanation for why the political center seems to have
shifted to the right since the 1960s. Conservatism has not increased, but declining trust
makes it seem as though it has.
While this study has concentrated on mass behavior, elites are certainly an
important part of the equation as well. Declining trust on the mass level affects them
31
profoundly. When trust in government was high, liberals like John F. Kennedy, Robert
F. Kennedy, and Lyndon Johnson were willing to lead public opinion on initiatives that
benefited racial minorities and the poor. As Carmines and Stimson (1989) demonstrate,
public support for civil rights did not increase until the Democratic Party signaled to its
identifiers that this was the appropriate tack to take. Since most sources of public opinion
do not change much over time, changes in elite behavior usually drive opinion change.
The opinion environment after the 1960s is no longer conducive to opinion
leadership in these areas. When politicians know that people don’t trust the government,
it is awfully hard for another Bobby Kennedy to tell Americans that government can
solve the country’s problems. In that sense, declining political trust has both a direct and
an indirect effect on public support for redistributive spending. With good reason, elites
do not have the courage to advocate aggressive federal involvement in social policy. As
long as people feel about the government as they do, advocacy of big government
solutions is a losing strategy.
The implications of this state of affairs are normatively important. The notion of
the country supporting the government’s policy course even when it does not act in
accordance with their self-interest or their policy preferences is particularly important to
political minorities and those with limited resources. As Schattschneider (1960) has
famously noted, the pressure group system sings with a decidedly upper-class accent, so
government will be particularly responsive to those with greater means. He might have
said the same about racial majorities. In a democracy, however, the government is
supposed to represent all interests, not just well-heeled or majority ones. For
Schattschneider, strong political parties were important to provide voice to those who
32
were not adequately represented by the pressure group system because parties were better
able than any other political institution to socialize the scope of conflict. If conflicts
between interests remain private, the more powerful will always win the battles. Only
when the scope of conflict is widened to include more actors can the balance of power be
altered enough to allow the less powerful to succeed.
An excellent illustration of Schattschneider’s reasoning in practice is the civil
rights movement. The balance of power between whites and blacks in the states of the
former Confederacy was one-sided. In terms of both political clout and numbers of
people, whites could dominate any private conflict with blacks that they chose. Civil
rights leaders were successful to the extent that they were able to widen the scope of
conflict to include northern activists, the federal courts, media elites, and, ultimately, the
Democratic Party. Only when the conflict was socialized and political decisions were
taken out of the hands of racist southern state governments and put in the hands of the
federal government did conditions change markedly for blacks.
Given the story of the civil rights movement, widespread distrust of the federal
government is problematic. At the root of Schattschneider’s reasoning is that one of the
parties will able to use the apparatus of the federal government to redress concerns. If the
federal government is not a viable option, what will perform its role? Regarding race, for
example, the federal government alone has worked to ensure fair outcomes for racial
minorities. Had the power of the federal government not been brought to bear on civil
rights issues, it is unclear what other institutions would have intervened to end
segregation and obstacles to voting.
33
Oftentimes redressing the concerns of the lower classes or racial and ethnic
minorities will require sacrifice on the part of majority groups to either their personal or
group’s interests. Even if the cost is not real but only perceived, trust in government is
important to gain the support of the groups making the sacrifice. If distrust of the
government makes members of majority groups or socially powerful groups less likely to
support minority or less powerful interests, then declining political trust undermines the
very concept of representation.
Finally, it should be obvious to those who favor an active government that low
trust in government will limit what leaders can accomplish, unless, of course, leaders are
trying to make the government do less, as was the case with the Contract with America.
It is hard to imagine another flurry of legislative activity like the Great Society under the
present circumstances, even if a crisis arose that necessitated fundamental changes.
Knowing that the public does not trust them, moreover, politicians, fearful of retribution,
look increasingly to opinion polls to assess the sentiments of their constituents. In
general, people tend not to support initiatives that do not directly benefit them. Thus
public policy, made increasingly with an eye to opinion polls, will be even more heavily
skewed against minority interests.
34
Tab
le 1
Sa
crifi
ce U
nlik
ely
Nec
essa
ry –
Dis
trib
utiv
e Po
licie
s
So
cial
Sec
urity
C
rim
e Pr
even
tion
Prot
ect E
nvir
onm
ent
19
92
1994
19
96
1992
19
94
1996
19
92
1994
19
96
Var
iabl
e Pa
ram
eter
Est
. (S
td. E
rr.)
Para
met
er E
st.
(Std
. Err
.) Pa
ram
eter
Est
. (S
td. E
rr.)
Para
met
er E
st.
(Std
. Err
.)
Para
met
er E
st.
(Std
. Err
.) Pa
ram
eter
Est
. (S
td. E
rr.)
Para
met
er E
st.
(Std
. Err
.) Pa
ram
eter
Est
. (S
td. E
rr.)
Para
met
er E
st.
(Std
. Err
.)
Inte
rcep
t
0.9
16**
* (0
.025
)
1.0
75**
* (0
.034
)
0.9
24**
* (0
.039
)
0.
898*
**
(0.0
25)
0.98
3***
(0
.034
)
0.
868*
**
(0.0
40)
1
.002
***
(0.0
26)
0
.970
***
(0.0
39)
1
.018
***
(0.0
41)
Polit
ical
Tru
st
-0.0
13
(0.0
29)
-0.0
26
(0.0
33)
0.0
02
(0.0
34)
0.0
27
(0.0
29)
0.0
25
(0.0
33)
0.0
12
(0.0
34)
0.0
05
(0.0
31)
0.0
09
(0.0
38)
0.0
26
(0.0
35)
Parti
sans
hip
-0.0
54**
(0
.021
) -0
.035
(0
.023
)
-0
.109
***
(0.0
26)
-0.0
13
(0.0
21)
-0.0
15
(0.0
23)
-0
.081
**
(0.0
27)
-
0.08
4***
(0
.022
)
-0.
104*
**
(0.0
27)
-
0.10
3***
(0
.027
) C
onse
rvat
ism
-0.1
92**
* (0
.032
)
-0
.286
***
(0.0
44)
-0.2
26**
* (0
.055
) 0.
023
(0.0
32)
-
0.16
4***
(0
.043
) 0.
069
(0.0
56)
-0
.216
***
(0.0
34)
-0
.460
***
(0.0
50)
-0
.567
***
(0.0
57)
Econ
omic
Eva
luat
ion
-0.0
36
(0.0
29)
-0.1
12**
* (0
.030
)
-0.1
41**
(0
.053
)
-0
.121
***
(0.0
29)
0.00
6 (0
.029
) -0
.005
(0
.054
) -0
.047
(0
.031
) 0
.060
* (0
.034
) -0
.091
(0
.055
) A
ge
0.04
2 (0
.042
) -0
.019
(0
.031
) 0.
009
(0.0
34)
-0.0
50*
(0.0
27)
-0.0
55*
(0.0
31)
-0.0
24
(0.0
35)
-
0.09
4***
(0
.029
)
-0.
139*
**
(0.0
36)
-
0.04
4***
(0
.035
) R
ace
0.
085*
**
(0.0
20)
0
.064
**
(0.0
23)
0.10
8***
(0
.025
)
0.0
57**
(0
.019
) 0.
021
(0.0
23)
0.01
0 (0
.026
) -0
.025
(0
.021
)
-0.
087*
**
(0.0
27)
0.04
8 (0
.026
) G
ende
r
0.0
69**
* (0
.013
)
0.0
57**
* (0
.014
)
0.0
48**
* (0
.015
) 0.
016
(0.0
13)
0
.048
***
(0.0
14)
0.00
5 (0
.016
) -0
.009
(0
.013
) -0
.005
(0
.016
) -0
.046
(0
.016
) Ed
ucat
ion
-0.1
99**
* (0
.025
)
-0
.289
***
(0.0
29)
-0.2
58**
* (0
.031
)
-0
.104
***
(0.0
25)
-0.1
31**
* (0
.029
) -0
.070
* (0
.032
) -0
.013
(0
.027
) -0
.046
(0
.034
) -0
.041
(0
.033
) In
com
e
-0
.075
**
(0.0
28)
-0
.020
**
(0.0
30)
-0.
066*
(0
.030
) 0.
030
(0.0
27)
0.04
9 (0
.030
) -0
.004
(0
.031
) -0
.073
**
(0.0
29)
0.04
0 (0
.035
) -0
.027
(0
.032
)
Adj
uste
d R
2 N
umbe
r of C
ases
.1
4 18
72
.17
1528
.1
7 13
69
.03
18
63
.04
15
32
.01
13
73
.06
1867
.0
9 15
24
.14
1370
*p
<.05
, **p
<.01
, ***
p<.0
01 -
one-
taile
d te
sts
Sour
ce:
Am
eric
an N
atio
nal E
lect
ion
Stud
ies,
1992
, 199
4, 1
996
35
Tab
le 2
Sa
crifi
ce L
ikel
y N
eces
sary
– N
onra
cial
ized
Ben
efic
iary
Gro
up (w
hen
avai
labl
e)
Fina
ncia
l Aid
Pu
blic
Sch
ools
C
hild
Car
e Po
or
19
92
1996
19
92
1994
19
96
1992
19
94
1996
19
92
1996
V
aria
ble
Para
m. E
st.
(Std
. Err
.) Pa
ram
. Est
. (S
td. E
rr.)
Para
m. E
st.
(Std
. Err
.) Pa
ram
. Est
. (S
td. E
rr.)
Para
m. E
st.
(Std
. Err
.) Pa
ram
.Est
. (S
td. E
rr.)
Para
m. E
st.
(Std
. Err
.) Pa
ram
. Est
. (S
td. E
rr.)
Para
m. E
st.
(Std
. Err
.) Pa
ram
. Est
. (S
td. E
rr.)
Inte
rcep
t
0.9
36**
* (0
.031
)
0.9
98**
* (0
.043
)
1.0
08**
* (0
.027
)
1.1
04**
* (0
.036
)
1.1
21**
* (0
.038
)
0.9
59**
* (0
.031
)
1.0
74**
* (0
.039
)
1.1
07**
* (0
.042
)
1.0
53**
* (0
.027
)
1.1
52**
* (0
.042
) Po
litic
al T
rust
0
.053
(0
.035
) 0.
027
(0.0
37)
0.0
72**
(0
.031
) 0.
037
(0.0
34)
0.
079*
* (0
.033
)
0.08
0**
(0.0
35)
0.05
5 (0
.037
) 0.
008
(0.0
37)
0.0
39
(0.0
30)
-0.0
12
(0.0
36)
Parti
sans
hip
-0.0
98**
* (0
.025
)
-0.1
29**
* (0
.029
)
-0.
092*
**
(0.0
22)
-0
.087
***
(0.0
24)
-0
.155
***
(0.0
26)
-
0.15
2***
(0
.025
)
-0.0
97**
* (0
.026
)
-0.1
73**
* (0
.029
)
-0.
150*
**
(0.0
22)
-0
.154
***
(0.0
28)
Con
serv
atis
m
-0.
201*
**
(0.0
39)
-0
.357
***
(0.0
57)
-
0.24
0***
(0
.034
)
-0.4
14**
* (0
.046
)
-0.
316*
**
(0.0
51)
-0
.316
***
(0.0
39)
-0
.519
***
(0.0
50)
-0
.583
***
(0.0
56)
-
0.35
8***
(0
.034
)
-0.6
67**
* (0
.055
) Ec
onom
ic
Eval
uatio
n -0
.036
(0
.035
) -0
.041
(0
.058
) -0
.047
(0
.030
) 0.
009
(0.0
31)
-0.0
61
(0.0
52)
-0.0
10
(0.0
35)
-0
.139
***
(0.0
33)
-0.0
10
(0.0
58)
-0.0
58*
(0.0
34)
0.05
0 (0
.056
) A
ge
-0
.188
***
(0.0
35)
-0
.205
***
(0.0
38)
-
0.15
8***
(0
.031
)
-0.1
88**
* (0
.034
)
-0.2
30**
* (0
.034
)
-0.
227*
**
(0.0
35)
-0
.182
***
(0.0
37)
-0.
088*
* (0
.037
) -0
.051
* (0
.028
) -0
.082
* (0
.036
) R
ace
0.
084*
**
(0.0
24)
0
.118
***
(0.0
28)
0
.053
**
(0.0
20)
0.02
4 (0
.025
) 0
.076
**
(0.0
25)
0.06
2***
(0
.023
) 0.
060*
(0
.027
)
0.1
14**
* (0
.028
)
0.0
55**
(0
.021
)
0.1
52**
* (0
.027
) G
ende
r 0.
007
(0.0
15)
0.01
1 (0
.017
)
0.0
32**
(0
.013
)
0.0
51**
* (0
.015
) 0
.046
**
(0.0
15)
0.04
7***
(0
.015
) 0
.044
**
(0.0
16)
0.01
4 (0
.017
) 0
.028
* (0
.013
) 0.
002
(0.0
17)
Educ
atio
n 0.
050*
(0
.030
) 0.
031
(0.0
35)
-0.
051*
(0
.026
)
-0.0
85**
(0
.030
)
-0.0
95**
(0
.031
) 0.
027
(0.0
30)
-0
.139
***
(0.0
33)
-0.0
45
(0.0
35)
-
0.14
2***
(0
.027
)
-0.1
80**
* (0
.034
) In
com
e
-0.0
20
(0.0
32)
0.01
9 (0
.034
) -0
.007
(0
.029
) 0
.066
* (0
.032
) 0.
037
(0.0
30)
-0
.101
***
(0.0
33)
0.05
7 (0
.035
) -0
.047
(0
.034
) -0
.070
* (0
.027
) -0
.014
(0
.037
) B
enef
icia
ry
Gro
up
-0.0
04
(0.0
16)
0.02
0 (0
.022
) 0.
022
(0.0
14)
0.01
2 (0
.016
) 0.
017
(0.0
20)
0.01
0 (0
.016
) 0.
011
(0.0
17)
0.01
4 (0
.020
) 0.
027
(0.0
21)
0.00
3 (0
.024
)
Adj
uste
d R
2 N
.0
8 17
37
.13
1367
.1
2 17
48
.14
1535
.1
8 13
72
.17
1736
.1
8 15
15
.22
1361
.2
1 18
53
.27
1365
*p<.
05, *
*p<.
01, *
**p<
.001
- on
e-ta
iled
test
s So
urce
: A
mer
ican
Nat
iona
l Ele
ctio
n St
udie
s, 19
92, 1
994,
199
6
36
Tab
le 3
Sa
crifi
ce L
ikel
y N
eces
sary
– N
on-r
acia
lized
Ben
efic
iary
Gro
up –
with
inte
ract
ions
Fina
ncia
l Aid
Pu
blic
Sch
ools
C
hild
Car
e Po
or
Var
iabl
e Pa
ram
eter
Est
. (S
td. E
rr.)
Para
met
er E
st.
(Std
. Err
.) Pa
ram
eter
Est
. (S
td. E
rr.)
Para
met
er E
st.
(Std
. Err
.)
Polit
ical
Tru
st
0.1
02*
(0.0
47)
0.07
0*
(0.0
42)
0.0
87*
(0.0
47)
0.0
67*
(0.0
34)
Ben
efic
iary
Gro
up
0.
020
(0.0
25)
0.02
1 (0
.019
) 0.
013
(0.0
25)
0.0
61*
(0.0
28)
Polit
ical
Tru
st *
B
enef
icia
ry G
roup
-0.1
07*
(0.0
65)
0.00
6 (0
.061
) -0
.015
(0
.068
) -
0.14
0*
(0.0
75)
*p<.
05, *
*p<.
01, *
**p<
.001
- on
e-ta
iled
test
s So
urce
: A
mer
ican
Nat
iona
l Ele
ctio
n St
udie
s, 19
92
37
Tab
le 4
Sa
crifi
ce L
ikel
y N
eces
sary
– R
acia
lized
Ben
efic
iary
Gro
up
Food
Sta
mps
W
elfa
re
Ass
ist B
lack
s C
ities
1992
19
94
1996
19
92
1994
19
96
1992
19
92
Var
iabl
e Pa
ram
eter
Est
.(S
td. E
rr.)
Para
met
er E
st.
(Std
. Err
.) Pa
ram
eter
Est
. (S
td. E
rr.)
Para
met
er E
st.
(Std
. Err
.)
Para
met
er E
st.
(Std
. Err
.) Pa
ram
eter
Est
. (S
td. E
rr.)
Para
met
er E
st.
(Std
. Err
.) Pa
ram
eter
Est
. (S
td. E
rr.)
Inte
rcep
t
0.5
87**
* (0
.038
)
0.5
57**
* (0
.038
)
0.4
91**
* (0
.049
)
0.
593*
**
(0.0
40)
0
.589
***
(0.0
42)
0
.520
***
(0.0
50)
0
.544
***
(0.0
36)
0
.494
***
(0.0
39)
Polit
ical
Tru
st
0.0
39
(0.0
35)
0
.092
**
(0.0
36)
0
.138
***
(0.0
37)
0.0
58*
(0.0
36)
0
.148
***
(0.0
39)
0.
100*
* (0
.038
)
0.0
82**
(0
.034
)
0.1
62**
* (0
.037
) R
ejec
tion
of A
nti-
Bla
ck S
tere
otyp
es
0.13
8***
(0
.037
)
0.
076*
**
(0.0
19)
0.0
65*
(0.0
42)
0.17
4***
(0
.039
)
0.1
11**
* (0
.021
) 0
.079
* (0
.043
)
0.2
60**
* (0
.036
) 0.
050
(0.0
39)
Parti
sans
hip
-0.0
54**
(0
.025
)
-0.0
65**
(0
.025
)
-0
.094
***
(0.0
28)
-0.0
97**
* (0
.027
)
-0.0
63**
(0
.028
)
-0
.100
***
(0.0
29)
-
0.10
0***
(0
.025
)
-0
.112
***
(0.0
27)
Con
serv
atis
m
-0
.496
***
(0.0
48)
-
0.38
1***
(0
.050
)
-0.
523*
**
(0.0
57)
-0.5
40**
* (0
.051
)
-0.
464*
**
(0.0
55)
-
0.69
4***
(0
.058
)
-0.4
98**
* (0
.047
)
-0.
337*
**
(0.0
51)
Econ
omic
Eva
luat
ion
0.01
0 (0
.035
) -0
.021
(0
.032
) 0.
034
(0.0
57)
-0.0
10
(0.0
38)
-0.0
36
(0.0
36)
0.08
8 (0
.058
) 0.
028
(0.0
34)
-0.0
59
(0.0
37)
Age
0.
027
(0.0
33)
0.01
7 (0
.034
) 0.
042
(0.0
38)
-0.0
12
(0.0
35)
0.01
0 (0
.037
) 0.
013
(0.0
38)
0.0
57*
(0.0
32)
0.16
8***
(0
.035
) R
ace
0.05
6*
(0.0
25)
0.
072*
* (0
.026
)
0.1
09**
* (0
.028
) 0
.043
(0
.026
) -0
.006
(0
.029
)
0.0
85**
(0
.029
)
0.
260*
**
(0.0
23)
0
.114
***
(0.0
26)
Gen
der
0.01
6 (0
.015
) -0
.001
(0
.015
) -0
.011
(0
.017
) 0.
017
(0.0
16)
0.01
4 (0
.017
) -0
.012
(0
.017
) 0.
002
(0.0
15)
-0.0
23
(0.0
16)
Educ
atio
n -0
.004
(0
.031
) -0
.071
* (0
.032
) -0
.008
(0
.035
) -
0.07
5*
(0.0
33)
-0
.100
**
(0.0
36)
-0.0
33
(0.0
35)
0
.077
***
(0.0
30)
0.
072*
(0
.033
) In
com
e
-0.0
71*
(0.0
35)
-0.0
19
(0.0
37)
-0.0
09
(0.0
38)
-0
.082
* (0
.037
) -0
.034
(0
.041
) -0
.073
* (0
.039
)
-0.0
59*
(0.0
32)
-0.0
26
(0.0
35)
Ben
efic
iary
Gro
up
0
.101
***
(0.0
24)
0
.132
***
(0.0
23)
0.10
1***
(0
.025
)
0.
096*
**
(0.0
25)
0.10
3***
(0
.025
)
0.0
78**
* (0
.025
) Se
e ab
ove
(rac
e)
0.07
0***
(0
.019
)
Adj
uste
d R
2 N
.1
4 17
99
.19
1511
.1
9 13
20
.17
17
99
.18
1516
.2
1 13
22
.25
1785
.1
2 17
92
*p<.
05, *
*p<.
01, *
**p<
.001
- on
e-ta
iled
test
s So
urce
: A
mer
ican
Nat
iona
l Ele
ctio
n St
udie
s, 19
92, 1
994,
199
6
38
Tab
le 5
Sa
crifi
ce L
ikel
y N
eces
sary
– R
acia
lized
Ben
efic
iary
Gro
up -
With
Inte
ract
ions
Fo
od S
tam
ps
Wel
fare
A
ssis
t Bla
cks
Citi
es
Var
iabl
e Pa
ram
eter
Est
. (S
td. E
rr.)
Para
met
er E
st.
(Std
. Err
.)
Para
met
er E
st.
(Std
. Err
.) Pa
ram
eter
Est
. (S
td. E
rr.)
Polit
ical
Tru
st
0.
207*
* (0
.086
) 0.
176*
(0
.051
)
0.3
01**
* (0
.085
)
0.19
3*
(0.0
43)
Rej
ectio
n of
Ant
i-Bla
ck
Ster
eoty
pes
0
.212
***
(0.0
51)
0
.227
***
(0.0
54)
0
.357
***
(0.0
51)
0.06
4 (0
.053
) Po
litic
al T
rust
X R
ejec
tion
of A
nti-B
lack
Ste
reot
ypes
-0.3
28**
(0
.154
) -0
.233
(0
.164
) -
0.42
5**
(0.1
70)
-0.0
60
(0.1
62)
*p
<.05
, **p
<.01
, ***
p<.0
01 -
one-
taile
d te
sts
Sour
ce:
Am
eric
an N
atio
nal E
lect
ion
Stud
ies,
1992
39
Tab
le 6
Sa
crifi
ce L
ikel
y N
eces
sary
– N
on-A
mer
ican
Ben
efic
iary
Gro
up
Sovi
et U
nion
19
92
Fore
ign
Aid
19
94
Fore
ign
Aid
19
96
Var
iabl
e Pa
ram
. Est
. (S
td. E
rr.)
Para
m. E
st.
(Std
. Err
.) Pa
ram
. Est
. (S
td. E
rr.)
Inte
rcep
t
0.3
00**
* (0
.033
)
0.1
58**
* (0
.038
)
0.1
76**
* (0
.041
) Po
litic
al T
rust
0.1
02**
(0
.038
)
0.2
14**
* (0
.037
)
0.2
88**
* (0
.035
) Pa
rtisa
nshi
p
0
.051
* (0
.028
) -0
.007
(0
.026
) 0.
014
(0.0
27)
Con
serv
atis
m
-0.
142*
**
(0.0
43)
-
0.22
0***
(0
.049
) -0
.074
(0
.057
) Ec
onom
ic E
valu
atio
n
0.1
86**
* (0
.039
)
0.1
31**
* (0
.033
) 0.
071
(0.0
55)
Age
0.
054
(0.0
36)
0.
106*
* (0
.035
) 0.
035
(0.0
36)
Rac
e
-0
.073
**
(0.0
26)
-0.0
12
(0.0
26)
0
.100
***
(0.0
26)
Gen
der
-0
.068
***
(0.0
17)
-
0.05
8***
(0
.016
) 0.
017
(0.0
16)
Educ
atio
n
0.1
63**
* (0
.033
)
0.1
66**
* (0
.033
) 0.
036
(0.0
33)
Inco
me
-0
.010
(0
.036
) 0
.057
* (0
.034
) -0
.072
* (0
.032
)
Adj
uste
d R
2 n
.12
1778
.0
9 15
24
.07
1362
*p
<.05
, **p
<.01
, ***
p<.0
01 -
one-
taile
d te
sts
Sour
ce:
Am
eric
an N
atio
nal E
lect
ion
Stud
ies,
1992
, 199
4, 1
996
40
Figu
re 1
Cha
nges
in K
ey P
oliti
cal V
aria
bles
, Pre
side
ntia
l Yea
rs, 1
964-
2000
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.81
1964
1968
1972
1976
1980
1984
1988
1992
1996
2000
Year
Con
serv
atis
m M
ean
Rep
ublic
anis
m M
ean
Issu
e Sc
ale
Mea
nG
ov't
Job
Mea
n
Mor
e C
ons.
Mor
e R
ep.
Less
Con
s.Le
ss R
ep.
41
Figu
re 2
Publ
ic S
uppo
rt fo
r Dec
reas
ing
Fede
ral S
pend
ing,
198
4-20
00
0102030405060708090100
1984
1988
1992
1994
1996
2000
Year
Percent
Publ
ic S
choo
lsFo
od S
tam
psEn
viro
nmen
tSo
cial
Sec
urity
Assi
st B
lack
sW
elfa
reFo
reig
n Ai
d
42
Figu
re 3
Cha
nges
in P
oliti
cal T
rust
, 196
4-20
00
0.47
50.
435
0.39
7
0.31
6
0.22
30.
19
0.31
1
0.21
0.18
8
0.24
4
0.30
10.
271
0
0.250.
5
0.75
1964
1966
1968
1972
1976
1980
1984
1988
1992
1994
1996
2000
Year
Mean
Sour
ce:
Amer
ican
Nat
iona
l Ele
ctio
n St
udie
s, 1
964-
2000