Abstract The literature, both scholarly and non‐scholarly, abounds with allegations that mass public is losing confidence in politicians and in many aspects of the political system. This chapter investigates such concerns. It first reviews some of the arguments for the decline of trust, and discusses where trust should be placed within the hierarchy of political support. It then discusses general characteristics of the data used, emphasizing issues of dimensionality and comparability across country and over time. It then describes the main trends in support from the late 1960s and early 1970s, focusing on sociological as well as political explanations. It concludes that the empirical evidence provides no firm guidance as to which factors are crucial in explaining variations in trust levels.
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