Does the Bureaucracy Affect Trust in Government? Evidence from Aggregate Public Opinion

Abstract

Objective This study aims to determine if attitudes toward the bureaucracy affect trust in government. Trust is a topic of interest in several disciplines but theory and empirical work are not well integrated with one another. Methods I extend previous work to create a macro‐level measure of attitudes toward the bureaucracy, bureaucratic approval, and then use time‐series analysis of aggregate public opinion to model trust in government from 1973 to 2018. Results I find that bureaucratic approval does affect trust in government, controlling for other important factors, and that the magnitude of this is comparable to that of congressional approval and consumer sentiment. Conclusion This study provides the first evidence that aggregate attitudes toward the bureaucracy affect trust. Moreover, bureaucratic approval is modestly favorable and has not substantially declined over time like congressional approval. I discuss the implications of the findings of this study for using the bureaucracy to improve trust in government.