Dr. Scott Robinson (Associate Professor Bush School and ISTPP Fellow) and ISTPP scholars Dr. Xinsheng Liu, Dr. James Stoutenborough, and Dr. Arnold Vedlitz explore determinants for the public’s trust in government agencies in their article, “Explaining Popular Trust in the Department of Homeland Security.” They find that political attitudes, policy salience, religiosity, and demographic make-up strongly shape the public’s levels of reported trust. Public administration research does not typically include political attitudes and political science research tends to leave out religiosity. As both variables are important predictors of agency trust, the researchers point out that it may be important to include them in future research. A grant awarded through the US Department of Homeland Security paid for the study upon which the researchers based this manuscript.
Article citation: Robinson, Scott E., Xinsheng Liu, James W. Stoutenborough, and Arnold Vedlitz. 2012. “Explaining Popular Trust in the Department of Homeland Security.” Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory. https://jpart.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2012/10/06/jopart.mus025.abstract
