RACE AND TRUST IN GOVERNMENT TESTING THE POLITICAL REALITY MODEL

Ever since the Institute for Social Research began measuring political trust more than twenty years ago, racial differences have been noted. Since 1968 blacks have been notably less trusting than whites. The explanation most commonly offered is the political reality model. This note directly tests the political reality model by comparing the relationship of race to trust in two settings. One is the nation in 1984 and the second is a city where a black mayor and black administration had been in office for eight years. If the political reality model is correct, the relationship of being black to trust should be positive in the local setting, precisely the opposite of the negative direction in national samples. The political reality model performed well under this direct comparison. As others have found, the CPS trust questions measure in large part one's evaluation of incumbents. These incumbent evaluations are part of the political reality that blacks respond to in answering the trust questions. Ever since the Institute for Social Research began measuring political trust more than twenty years ago, racial differences have been noted. Since 1968 blacks have been notably less trusting than whites (Abramson, 1983). The explanation most commonly offered is the political reality model, which assumes that political leaders treat blacks less favorably than they treat whites. The model also assumes that blacks are denied political power (Abramson, 1983:219). Thus the lower trust among blacks is due to the political reality that they are disadvantaged. SUSAN E. HOWELL iS Professor of Political Science at the University of New Orleans and Director of the UNO Poll. DEBORAH FAGAN iS Principal Planner, Dupage County Regional Planning Commission, Wheaton, Illinois. The authors wish to thank James M. Vanderleeuw, research associate with the University of New Orleans Poll, who prepared the data for analysis. The data were made available by the University of New Orleans Poll and the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research. The consortium bears no responsibility for this analysis. Public Opinion Quarterly Volume 52:343-350 ? 1988 by the American Association for Public Opinion Research Published by The University of Chicago Press / 0033-362X/88/0052-03/$2.50 This content downloaded from 207.46. 13.128 on Wed, 07 Sep 2016 04:33:55 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor. org/terms 344 Susan E. Howell and Deborah Fagan What if political reality were different? What if blacks were perceived to be politically advantaged? Under these conditions the political reality model predicts that blacks will be more trusting than whites. Our research provides a quasi-experimental test of the political reality model. It examines the relationship between race and trust in a setting where blacks are politically advantaged. There is very little direct evidence in support of the political reality model applied to adults. Surveys of preadults have shown striking black/white differences which the authors attribute to the relative disadvantage of blacks (Foster, 1978; Friedrich, 1977; Abramson, 1983: 221). However, these studies have one of two problems. They either do not use the standard Center for Political Studies (CPS) trust questions, or they do not compare settings where blacks are politically advantaged to settings where they are disadvantaged. Using other indicators of trust is the lesser of the two problems if we assume that these other measures are closely related to trust. However, the political reality model requires variation in political reality. The only research known to us that varies political reality is by Abney and Hutcheson (1981), who studied trust in Atlanta before and after the election of a black mayor. They found that the election of a black mayor increased trust among blacks, while whites followed the national trend of declining trust. However, they were unable to use the traditional CPS trust questions, and they did not make the empirical link with the black mayor. Our research directly tests the political reality model by comparing the relationship of race to trust in two settings. One is the nation in 1984, when presumably a Republican president would enhance feelings of distrust among blacks and the previously noted relationship would be confirmed. The second setting is a city where a black mayor and black administration had been in office for eight years: New Orleans in 1985. If the political reality model is correct, the relationship of being black to trust should be positive in New Orleans, precisely the opposite of the negative direction in national samples. Furthermore, if the black mayor is truly the factor producing higher trust among blacks, a measure of approval of that mayor will have strong predictive power in a model of trust. New Orleans is not an extreme example. As of 1985, black mayors governed 20 cities with populations over 100,000, including four of the six largest cities in the nation (Piliawsky, 1985). Any of these locations could provide a laboratory for the test of the political reality model. A Deep South city is particularly appropriate for a study of race and trust in government. Blacks have had three centuries of racism in which to rationally construct strong distrust of government. This content downloaded from 207.46. 13.128 on Wed, 07 Sep 2016 04:33:55 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor. org/terms Race and Trust in Government 345 The standard CPS trust questions were asked in New Orleans of a randomly selected sample of 731 registered voters, 50% of whom were black. This distribution accurately reflects the population of registered voters. The CPS trust questions were amended to say "the government in City Hall" instead of "the government" or "the government in Washington. " The questions were administered by telephone during October 1985 (see Appendixes 1 and 2 for details of the survey design and question wording). The bivariate relationship between trust and race is presented in Table 1. As hypothesized, the signs of the relationships are clearly in opposite directions. Very notable racial differences are apparent in the local sample. Over half of the blacks exhibit high trust in government. Given the political science literature this is remarkable. National racial differences, using National Election Study data from 1984, are not as large, probably because the nation represents a much more heterogeneous population. Nationally, the largest racial difference lies in the low trust category, where a third of the blacks are located. This reversed relationship is due to the different response of blacks to local government. Whites are not very different locally and nationally. This strongly suggests the political reality model: a black city administration changes black attitudes about their political position. Table 1. Race and Trust in National and Local Settings National (1984) Local (1985) Whites Blacks Whites Blacks