Abstract

Citizen's trust in political institutions is important for democracies. However, there are doubts regarding the nature of trust judgments. We argue that trust judgments concerning political institutions centrally involve the consideration of both the preparation and resources of the institutions that enable it to fulfill its goals (capacity), and the orientation of such goals toward the wellbeing of citizens (benevolence). Results are based on a survey carried out in Santiago, Chile, during 2005 on 996 people. We conclude that both capacity and benevolence are strong predictors of trust and that, beyond the direct influence of each of them, they also have a joint effect on trust judgments.