Abstract

Previous literature suggests that low levels of citizen trust in government might lead citizens to think private sector is superior in conducting government activities and in turn increase preferences for privatization. Although some attention has been paid to trust in government and privatization, little research has considered varying countries’ contexts. To fill the void, the purpose of this article is to advance our understanding of trust in government by examining the influence of trust in government on citizens’ preference for privatization by using samples of Chile, South Korea, New Zealand, and the United States. Our results show that, as predicted, the Korean and American citizens who distrust their government are more likely to prefer privatization. Contrary to our expectation, however, Chilean citizens prefer privatization even when they trust in government. Moreover, trust in government has very limited impacts on preferences in New Zealand. Furthermore, there are some variations in terms of the impacts of trust on preferences depending on which government a citizen trusts.