Distrust in Political Parties: Theory, Evidence & Implications in Chile.

Distrust in political parties is considered widespread in manycountries, but the concept is under-theorized, poorly measured,and its implications unclear. I offer a working conceptualizationof distrust in political parties and analyze it in Chile using Qmethodology. The analysis suggests that distrust in parties isprominent in Chile and takes Active, Alienated, and Skepticalforms, each with distinct demographic, socialization, behavioral,and partisan correlates. Such evidence questions the possibilityof trust in political parties as a collectivity. Despite distruston other issues, when parties are not seen as corrupt and asworking for the common good, distrust does not generalize beyondparties into other political institutions. Finally, the researchsuggests fruitful operationalizations of distrust for use inpublic opinion surveys. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]