THE GUYANESE people are witnesses to a daily torrent of superfluous and offensive political commentaries emanating through the mass media. To an onlooker from the outside, this deluge appears as a conspiracy to induce political instability. I would contend, nonetheless, that the citizenry must have the right to engage in peaceful protests, but without becoming inimical to national security interests vis-а-vis serious abuses of media freedoms. I submit, too, that this scenario happens in several countries with different regime types, some democratic, some autocratic, and some in transition to democracy. And I suspect that protests might be a scarce commodity in those countries with autocratic regimes. Nevertheless, under these circumstances, it is strategic to gauge the level of political trust in a society, regardless of its regime type because political trust guarantees regime stability. And political trust is ‘a summary judgment that the system is responsive and will do what is right even in the absence of constant scrutiny’ (Miller and Listhaug, 1990).

To further this discussion, let us look at the foundations of political trust in government in six Asian societies – China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan – (Ka-ying Wong, Wan, and Hsiao, 2011). These countries have varied economic development, with Japan, Singapore, and Hong Kong ahead of South Korea and Taiwan, with China still carrying a developing country status. They also have varied political systems. The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index categorizes South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan as democracies, and Singapore and Hong Kong with hybrid regimes, and China being authoritarian (The Economist, 2008). Again, Singapore and Hong Kong carry a high rating on the Fraser Institute’s Economic Freedom Index and the Globalization Index; nonetheless, they carry poor ratings on the Reporters without Borders’ World Press Freedom Index.

The people in Singapore, China, and Hong Kong, in that order, demonstrated the highest overall political trust in their governments, while South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan, showed the lowest political trust. Clearly, these results indicate that a nondemocratic regime does not necessarily inhibit trust and that a democratic regime does not necessarily reinforce trust. And the political trust in these six countries, too, has no direct association with economic development, meaning that both the low trust and high-trust countries have different levels of economic development (Ka-ying Wong, Wan, and Hsiao, 2011). The conclusion is that regime type and economic development have little to do with political trust. What then impacts political trust?

Ka-ying Wong, Wan, and Hsiao (2011) provided answers through reviewing the impact that (1) a government’s policy performance, (2) people’s personal life satisfaction, and (3) their cultural orientations, would have on political trust. Their study found the following:
* People who were more approving of their government’s performance tended to show higher political trust.
* People with a higher level of personal life satisfaction tended to show a higher level of trust.
* People who show a greater respect for traditional culture or traditional authority tended to have a higher level of political trust.
* People with high post-materialist orientations tended to show no connection with political trust.

These findings demonstrate that the institutional approach, i.e., an approach allowing a person to meet his or her needs in society (examples: government’s performance with benefits for the people, and people’s personal life satisfaction) is stronger than the cultural approach, in telling us what political trust is; and these results are similar to Mishler and Rose’s findings (2001) on post-communist societies in Eastern Europe, Central Europe, and the former Soviet Union. And undoubtedly, using the institutional approach, the findings showED, too, that political trust has different sides.

For instance, Rothstein and Stolle (2008), in their study of 56 countries, showed these different sides between (1) where we can say there is political trust in the people’s representatives (as representatives in political parties, parliaments, ministers of government, etc.) and (2) where there is political trust in law enforcement (courts, police, etc.). And the starting point for political trust in these representatives is a sharing of their political ideology and partisanship; and again, the starting point for political trust in law enforcement is fairness and competence.

The people of Singapore, China, and Hong Kong showed the highest overall political trust; and they showed this trust vis-а-vis expressions of happiness with their government’s performance, articulated a fair amount of personal life satisfaction, and expressed great deference to the traditions of their countries. These people of Singapore, China, AND Hong Kong showed political trust to their representatives in the political parties, parliaments, and government ministers because they share the ideology of those representatives; and the people of Singapore, China, and Hong Kong ALSO are quite happy with the workings of their law enforcement agencies, as they seemed to believe that these agencies are just and competent to deliver the goods.

The same cannot be said of people from South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan, with an overall low political trust. Furthermore, if economic development really has an association with political trust, then Japan would top these countries in political trust; this was not the case here, as the findings (Ka-ying Wong, Wan, and Hsiao, 2011)  did not support a correlation between political trust and economic development.

And in an era where governments are expected to do a lot more than before, a government’s performance becomes critical to the growth of political trust. Low level governmental performances will yield low political trust, a prime ingredient for political instability and electoral defeat. For these reasons, at election times anywhere, the watchword or phrase for incumbents has to be ‘government’s performance’. Non-incumbents, by definition, have no recent governmental track record.