Louis Wirth's classic description of the social and psychological effects of urbanism is organized into a model for the purpose of reviewing relevant theory and empirical research. Evidence on predicted structural effects (differentiation, formal integration and anomie) and individual effects (sensory overload, role mobility, isolation and deviance) is, at most, mixed. The best-supported predictions are of differentiation and deviance. Alternative models of urban life are explored, and, in the process of the review, research directions are suggested.

"Urbanism as a Way of Life" A Review and an Agenda

After addressing the meaning of “trust” and “trustworthiness,” we review survey-based research on citizens' judgments of trust in governments and politicians, and historical and comparative case study research on political trust and government trustworthiness. We first provide an overview of research in these two traditions, and then take up four topics in more detail: (a) political trust and political participation; (b) political trust, public opinion, and the vote; (c) political trust, trustworthy government, and citizen compliance; and (d) political trust, social trust, and cooperation. We conclude with a discussion of fruitful directions for future research.

Political Trust and Trustworthiness

National survey data demonstrate that support of the federal government decreased substantially between 1964 and 1970. Policy preference, a lack of perceived difference between the parties, and policy dissatisfaction were hypothesized as correlates of trust and alternative explanations of this decrease. Analysis revealed that the increased distrust in government, or cynicism, was associated with reactions to the issues of racial integration and U.S. involvement in the Vietnam war. A curvilinear relationship was found between policy preference on these and other contemporary social issues and political cynicism. The minority favoring centrist policies was more likely to trust the government than the large proportion who preferred noncentrist policy alternatives. This complex relationship between trust and policy preference is explained by dissatisfaction with the policies of both political parties. The dissatisfied noncentrists formed highly polarized and distinct types: “cynics of the left,” who preferred policies providing social change, and “cynics of the right,” who favored policies of social control.

Political Issues and Trust in Government: 1964–1970.

Scholars have debated the importance of declining political trust to the American political system. By primarily treating trust as a dependent variable, however, scholars have systematically underestimated its relevance. This study establishes the importance of trust by demonstrating that it is simultaneously related to measures of both specific and diffuse support. In fact, trust's effect on feelings about the incumbent president, a measure of specific support, is even stronger than the reverse. This provides a fundamentally different understanding of the importance of declining political trust in recent years. Rather than simply a reflection of dissatisfaction with political leaders, declining trust is a powerful cause of this dissatisfaction. Low trust helps create a political environment in which it is more difficult for leaders to succeed.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0003055400215827

The Political Relevance of Political Trust

Many fear that democracies are suffering from a legitimacy crisis. This book focuses on 'democratic deficits', reflecting how far the perceived democratic performance of any state diverges from public expectations. Pippa Norris examines the symptoms by comparing system support in more than fifty societies worldwide, challenging the pervasive claim that most established democracies have experienced a steadily rising tide of political disaffection during the third-wave era. The book diagnoses the reasons behind the democratic deficit, including demand (rising public aspirations for democracy), information (negative news about government) and supply (the performance and structure of democratic regimes). Finally, Norris examines the consequences for active citizenship, for governance and, ultimately, for democratization. This book provides fresh insights into major issues at the heart of comparative politics, public opinion, political culture, political behavior, democratic governance, political psychology, political communications, public policymaking, comparative sociology, cross-national survey analysis and the dynamics of the democratization process.

Democratic Deficit: Critical Citizens Revisited

In recent years there has emerged in this country a radical questioning and rejection of established political institutions unparalleled since the Civil War in its intensity and scope. One objective indicator of this trend since World War II is the marked rise in voluntary renunciation of American citizenship, an act which represents the formal and final estrangement of the individual from his former political ties. Available evidence suggests that estrangement from the polity is also widespread in countries throughout the world as fundamental questions are being raised about the legitimacy of political institutions and political leadership.Attitudes toward the political system have long been a concern of political scientists. Major orienting theories of the political system suggest that citizen support plays a crucial role in determining the structure and processes of political systems. Almond and Verba, for example, use the concept “civic culture” to refer to a complex mix of attitudes and behaviors considered to be conducive to democratic government. Easton underscores the fundamental importance of attitudes for system stability, focusing especially on “diffuse support” as a prerequisite for the integration of political systems. He suggests that “(w)here the input of support falls below [a certain] minimum, the persistence of any kind of system will be endangered. A system will finally succumb unless it adopts measures to cope with the stress.”The conversion of these general theoretical ideas into systematic empirical theory requires further rigorous and comprehensive analyses of types of citizen support and the development of empirical indicators for this domain.

Dimensions of Political Alienation

This is a study of the relationship between partisan preference and social integration in natural work groups in several automobile plants. The basic finding is that the number of work group friends increases from the Democratic to the Republican end of a standard party identification scale. Since the political context of the study sample is heavily Democratic, attention is focused on the fact that Republicans in this environment are political deviants. It is suggested that friendship integration is a function of perceived deviance in that deviating from group norms leads to social insecurity, cognitive dissonance, and a need for opinion evaluation, all of which motivate affiliative behavior. Several hypotheses are deduced from this proposition. The first is that Republicans have less political contact in nonwork contexts, but more in the work group, than Democrats do. Second, the relationship between partisanship and friendship integration should be greater for members of social groups in which the pro-Democratic norm is stronger than for those in which this norm is weaker. Third, strength of identification with the norm-bearing group ought to be positively related to friendship integration among deviants, since identification would make the group's norms more salient and increase the deviant's discomfort. Fourth, political deviants should tend to choose each other as friends to a greater extent than political conformers do. Finally, since friendship alliances apparently serve a protective function for political deviants, it is hypothesized that among deviants (but not among conformers), friendship integration should be related to political participation. All the hypotheses are supported. The results are interpreted in terms of the critical function of social support for political deviants in pluralist societies. Since pressures for conformity are strong, it is important to understand the ways in which minorities deal with them. Friendships in work groups, ostensibly nonpolitical, therefore have important political functions.

The Friendship Group as a Protective Environment for Political Deviants

Using data from a national public opinion survey carried out in the Soviet Union during November and December 1989, we explore two attitudes relevant to the revolutionary changes there: (1) attitudes toward change and political democracy and (2) attitudes toward a core component of socialist ideology, the locus of responsibility for social well-being (the state or individuals?). These variables are unrelated, with the sample relatively evenly divided among the intersecting cells of a cross tabulation. While social conflict may be mitigated by the small sizes of absolutely opposing groups, consensus may also be hard to reach. Ethnicity, education, income, age, party membership, and life satisfaction have important effects on these attitudes. We discuss how attitude patterns in our data may be related to the disintegration of the Soviet Union and to problems faced by the independent successor states as they develop new institutions and foster new values.

Redefining the Political System of the USSR: Mass Support for Political Change

In 1978, the University of Michigan Center for Political Studies introduced four new political trust questions that, more than the standard trust items used over the course of two decades, have specific referents-President Carter, the Carter administration, and the U.S. Congress. These four new questions, apart from their changed objects of reference, use the same wording as two of the older trust items. Thus, observed correlations between the new items and old items may reflect both substantive conceptual associations among the various political referents and associations resulting from overlapping methods variance, i.e., from the mere similarity of question wording. We find that there are problems caused by similar question wording and demonstrate that analyses of the new items will not offer any easy solution to the problem of interpreting the standard political trust index.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/info/2110854

On the Meaning of Political Trust: New Evidence from Items Introduced in 1978

The study of international migrants reveals processes of political resocialization that include translation, expansion, and replacement of prior political learning. This paper demonstrates that American party identification influences the political adaptation of American migrants in Australia by affecting both whether or not they adopt an Australian party identification and the particular parties they select. However, political ideology is an even more important factor in selecting a new party identification and, in particular, leads some American Democrats to choose a more conservative party, and some American Republicans a more liberal one, in Australia. People who were weak partisans in the United States are more likely than others to relinquish their American partisanship once in Australia. Over and above these individual-level variables, the political environment is also influential: migrants tend to favor parties that have been electorally more successful in the Australian state in which they live. ...

Ada W. Finifter

Papers

Dimensions of Political Alienation

The Friendship Group as a Protective Environment for Political Deviants

Redefining the Political System of the USSR: Mass Support for Political Change

On the Meaning of Political Trust: New Evidence from Items Introduced in 1978

Party Identification and Political Adaptation of American Migrants in Australia