Abstract for: An Action-Perception Theory of Trust and Confidence in Government

An action-perception theory of trust and confidence in government is presented. In this theory, building on prior work on the dynamics of trust and confidence in government (Martinez-Moyano, Samsa, Baldwin, Willke and Moore 2007; Martinez-Moyano and Samsa 2008), we explore dynamic drivers of trust and confidence in government by focusing on how judgments about the state of the system and decisions derived from these create, shape, and iteratively reshape the perceptions of multiple agents in the system leading to modifications in expectation levels and, ultimately, changes trust and confidence. Additionally, we explore the implications of such a model in the context of system resilience.