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Trust in Government and Income Inequality

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Global Encyclopedia of Public Administration, Public Policy, and Governance

Synonyms

Confidence; Economic inequality; Evaluation of government performance; Perceptions; Public opinion

Definition

Political trust is an evaluative orientation of citizens toward their political system, or some part of it, based upon their normative expectations.

Income inequality is the extent to which income is distributed in an uneven manner among a population.

Introduction

In the mid-1960s, Americans had confidence in their political institutions. However, between 1964 and 2017, the percentage of Americans who trusted that the government in Washington would do what was right “most of the time” or “just about always” fell from 76% to 20% (Pew Research Center 2017). A number of comparative studies examined whether other Western democracies experienced a similar reduction in trust of their political institutions. These studies revealed that declining trust in government was not unique to the United States. Indeed, diminished levels of trust in government were happening...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Public Policy, Indiana University – Purdue University Fort Wayne, Fort Wayne, IN, USA

    Nurgul R. Aitalieva

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  1. Nurgul R. Aitalieva
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Correspondence to Nurgul R. Aitalieva .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, Florida, USA

    Ali Farazmand

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Aitalieva, N.R. (2018). Trust in Government and Income Inequality. In: Farazmand, A. (eds) Global Encyclopedia of Public Administration, Public Policy, and Governance. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-31816-5_3370-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-31816-5_3370-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-31816-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-31816-5

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