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: While research has provided evidence that culture and institutional performance shape individual level trust in political institutions, scholars have neglected to adequately estimate the effect of political institutions and macroeconomic conditions on trust. Using data from the World Value Surveys for eleven Latin American cases, we test if countries with “partyizing” electoral systems - those with rules that encourage voters to hold the party, not individuals, accountable for government performance - experience lower levels of distrust in political parties and the legislature in times of poor economic conditions than those countries with “personalizing” electoral rules. Our analysis shows that the macro political and economic context largely conditions the impact of culture and institutional performance on political trust. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Current data from public opinion polls gathered in the last 20 years seem to confirm what experts have suspected all along: Latin Americans do not trust. They do not trust their public institutions, their congress, their politicians, their police, or the media. Moreover, when asked if they trust their fellow citizens, Latin Americans express high levels of distrust against each other. Interpersonal trust is very low in the region as a whole. According to the political culture perspective, low levels of interpersonal trust may hinder political and economic development. While many studies have attempted to explain the consequences of not trusting, few studies have tried to find out why trust is low. This preliminary study fills the vacuum by looking at intrinsic or structural (cultural, socio-economic) and extrinsic explanations (citizens' evaluations of performance) as reasons for distrust in Latin America. The main research method of this study is the statistical method supplemented with the comparative method when data are available. The database used is the Latinobarómetro. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]