The Dynamics of Political Trust in South Africa, 1995–2006

The paper examines the roles of identity-based and performance-based trust in explaining patterns of popular trust in public institutions in post-apartheid South Africa. The analysis aims in particular to map the dynamics of the relationship between the two types of trust, and to explore whether performance-based trust will gradually assume prominence when memories of the previous socialization process fade away. The latter would be in accordance with the ‘life-long learning theory of political support’ proposed by Mishler and Rose with regard to post-communist regimes. Based on data from the World Values Surveys for 1995, 2001, and 2006, the empirical analysis reveals that both performance and identity continued to influence political trust in South Africa 11 years after the change of regime. Although the impact of racial identities has dropped somewhat in the most recent survey, there is no indication that one source of institutional trust is more dominant than the other.