Even though political trust has been well studied so far in its structure, development and conditions, there are hardly any analyses dealing with the important question of what political trust – and particularly a lack or decline of political trust – implies for the citizens' reaction to public policy and policy changes. This article will focus on the effects of political trust on the willingness of German citizens to accept recent reforms of retirement pension, health care and family aid. It aims to highlight the following questions: Does political trust of the population encourage the disposition to support welfare state reforms? How do the characteristics of different policy reforms affect the impact of political trust on support of reform? The empirical evidence presented in this paper underpins the role of political trust as a valuable resource in attitudes towards reforms. Although political trust is not the most important determinant of support for welfare state reform and does not play the same role under all circumstances, it impacts positively on approval of reforms.
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Gabriel et al. (2011) studied this question.