Bringing together essays by leading Harvard scholars, this book explores the roots of mistrust. It first examines government's current scope, its actual performance, and citizens' perception of it s performance. It then assesses many possible explanations that have been offered for the decline of trust, including the end of the Cold War, elevated expectations following WWII, a s weakened economy, the effects of globalization, resentment over political scandals, and incompetence of bureaucrats. The book clarifies thinking about the sources of public disaffection.
Mistrust, the contributors find, is largely unrelated to national economic conditions, to challenges of a global economy, to the Cold War, or to bumbling bureaucrats and venal politicians. Rather, they show that the most likely culprits are all around us - and interacting blend of cultural and political conflicts stirred by an increasingly corrosive news media.