Hetherington, M.J. (1998). The Political Relevance of Political Trust The American Political Science Review, 92 (4), 791-808.

SUMMARY: This article explores the definition and the implications of political trust. Furthermore, the study aims to explain the reason behind the decline in political trust in America. It demonstrates that variables such as newspaper/television consumption, domestic/foreign policy satisfaction, perception of government effectiveness and economic evaluations of people affect political trust. It was also demonstrated that feelings about the incumbent government officials has an impact on political trust as well. In general the study gives an understanding of what can increase or decrease political trust. Moreover, the importance of political trust was established in the study as it shows its correlation to specific and diffuse support. Through this, the findings implicate that political trust affects government effectiveness just as perception on government effectiveness affects political trust since it creates the environment in which the government governs or performs. Thus, it means that declining political trust creates an environment in which it is difficult for the government to perform well. RELEVANCE: I consider this article relevant to my topic because it gives me an idea of what in general affects political trust. Since I am interested in studying the relationship between economic stability and political trust, reading this article is a good starting point in learning all about political trust. It defines what political trust is right away and directly states its importance. Since this article talks about the political relevance of political trust, it also gives me an idea why studying my topic is important. Furthermore, it makes me be aware of the fact that there are other factors aside from economic stability that affects political trust.