ABSTRACT
Survey data on the state of trust at both the policy and governmental levels during the last half of 1998 both support the analysis in the volume and highlight several key issues in analyzing public trust. The existing literature agrees that congressional job approval is typically low and lags behind that of the president because the Congress is viewed as overly self-interested and partisan, because of public intolerance for controversy, and because of the public perception of its role and responsibility. The link between civic education and civic virtue thus becomes a factor in generating public trust that needs to be emphasized quite as much as civic engagement or interpersonal trust. The cognitive and evaluative dimensions of politics have, in short, become far more fluid and contested, and therefore far more determinative of results. This is a truth that neither current levels of prosperity nor current levels of cynicism should be allowed to obscure.
