Still a new democracy? Individual-level effects of social trust on political trust in South Korea

The social capital theory holds that there is a positive relationship between social and political trust; however, despite the prominence of this postulation, this relationship has often been disputed among political scientists. While recent studies on advanced democracies have shown a strong positive relationship between social and political trust, studies on East Asian democracies, which previously showed a weak or negative relation, remain scant, separating these countries into their own category of new democracies. The motivation of this study is based on the importance of revisiting the relationship between social and political trust using recent data from one such country—South Korea—to determine the nature of this previously studied negative or weak relationship. The results of this study indicate that generalized social trust in South Korea is positively associated with political trust. This result is in line with recent findings in advanced democracies. While this positive relationship is consistent and significant across models, a greater portion of political trust is explained by economic and political performance, including factors such as the economy, corruption, inequality, and the welfare system, making institutional performance a critical predictor of political trust.