세 가지 신뢰유형과 정치적 신뢰의 매개적 역할

The basic purpose of this study is to test the mediating model of political trust, derived from existing historical and empirical studies. To do so, many questions on trust are categorized into three types of trust, particularized, generalized and political trust. Contrary to previous studies, family trust is not included in particularized trust. Based on this result, a mediating model linking three types of trust is tested, while the known causes of generalized and political trust are taken into consideration. The notable results are (1) family trust negatively affects generalized trust, (2) the membership of and activities in voluntary associations are positively related to generalized trust, which is often not a significant cause in previous research, and most importantly (3) political trust is a mediating variable between the two other types of trust. This result supports the institutional explanation of generalized trust, implying that political reform efforts of institutionalization and in corruption prevention and eradication would result in a higher level of generalized trust.