Date of Award

5-10-2026

Date Published

June 2026

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Political Science

Advisor(s)

Shana Gadarian

Keywords

Partisanship;Pollution;Trust

Subject Categories

Political Science | Social and Behavioral Sciences

Abstract

Social and political trust are paramount for healthy, democratic functioning, with social trust mattering for cooperative behavior or political action and political trust weighing more heavily for policy compliance, democratic satisfaction, and political participation. Across the last half century, trusting attitudes between citizens and towards government declined precipitously, but this decline has been less dramatic among partisans. What drives the relationship between partisan identification and social trust? Does perceived value congruence with a group cause social trust to increase? Do objective signals of ambient air pollution affect trust in state government? These questions are interrogated and tested across three papers that rely on an array of nationally representative survey data and model-adjusted satellite data to answer empirical inquiries with a diverse set of methods. Paper one tests the relationship between partisan identification and social trust across time using nationally representative survey data. Paper Two posits and tests a theory of value congruence to account for the relationship between partisanship and social trust. Paper Three takes an instrumental variable approach using wind speed as an instrument for pollution exposure to test how exogenous variation in PM2.5, an air pollutant, affects trust in state government. I find evidence of a positive relationship between partisanship and social trust, observational evidence that this construct mediates the relationship between partisanship and social trust, and inconsistent support for a causal relationship. I find no evidence that exposure to pollution affects trust in state government in the United States.

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Open Access

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