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This study addresses the question of what is affecting political trust in Europe. Political trust is vital for creating system legitimacy, which is needed for a democracy to be stable and effective. Over the years many theories about what is determining political trust have been developed, though no consensus of which theory that has the most effect has been reached. This paper will examine the effect that social capital and economic fairness evaluations have on political trust in Europe and if these effects can be seen to change depending on how long the countries has had democratic institutions. 27 countries were included in the study; these were divided into four regions depending on their time with democratic institutions. The theories used when looking at what could be effecting political trust are the social capital theory, defined by Robert Putnam in his studies of the system changes in Italy and the United States, and the economic fairness theory, used by Kluegel & Manson in their research on the post-communist states in Eastern Europe. The division of countries based on time with democratic institutions was done based on the two forms of political support defined by David Easton. The survey material used in the study is taken from the 2012 European Social Survey (ESS). The study concludes that both social capital as well as economic fairness evaluations have an effect on political trust, though how strong the effects are varies depending on the region of research and on which parts of the two theories that is tested. Though by far the strongest impact is in all four European regions seen when looking at how the citizens evaluate the economic system. The time since a country formed democratic institutions could not be found to have an effect on political trust.

台灣在新興民主國家當中具有相當特殊的地位，一方面由威權轉型至民主的過程相對而言十分平和，另一方面社會上又呈現出民主運作的紊亂與不和諧。台灣民眾對於民主政府與民主政治的態度可作為觀察台灣未來民主發展的重要依據。因此，本研究即從微觀的角度出發，並將分析的焦點集中在民眾對於「支持」（support）的概念，以探索民眾對台灣民主政治的感受，並釐清台灣民眾對政治現實與民主理念的差距，並從政治支持的角度來觀察台灣民眾的分布情形。 本研究採用二手資料量化分析的方式，運用行政院國家科學委員會補助之研究計畫，2003年「台灣選舉與民主化調查研究」之調查資料，就台灣民眾政治支持的態度進行分析。本研究將政治支持的具體含意界定為Easton所指涉的廣泛性支持（diffuse support）與特殊性支持（specific support），並透過因素分析的方式釐清屬於廣泛性支持層次的「民主價值因子」、「民主政治因子」與特殊性支持層次的「權威當局因子」、「國會與政黨機構因子」、「官僚與司法機構因子」等五個政治支持因子。 為釐清五個因子中廣泛性支持與特殊性支持之間的差異，本研究以八個政治社會學解釋變數進行相關分析，發現與廣泛性支持因子都有關聯性的是「人際互信程度」，顯示社會上人與人之間若能累積一定程度的互信基礎與社會資本，對於體系裡廣泛性支持的養成具有正面的幫助。與特殊性支持因子都有關聯性的是「全家收入狀況」與「藍綠意識型態」，全家平均收入越高的民眾，對於「官僚與司法機構」因子的信心就越高，而全家平均收入越低的民眾，則對「權威當局」以及「國會與政黨機構」因子的信心越高；在藍綠意識型態方面，傾向泛綠的民眾對於「權威當局」因子的信心越高，而傾向泛藍的民眾則對於「國會與政黨機構」以及「官僚與司法機構」因子的信心較高。 此外，進一步將政治支持分別依照廣泛性支持與特殊性支持的高低程度，可區分為四個政治支持類型，即「穩定型」（廣泛高、特殊高）、「支持型」（廣泛高、特殊低）、「順從型」（廣泛低、特殊高）與「疏離型」（廣泛低、特殊高）等四類。本研究一方面進行四個政治支持類型與台灣社會主要之社會人口特徵（性別、世代、教育程度、職業、省籍、政黨認同）的關聯性分析，同時透過多元勝算對數模型（multinomial logit model），檢驗四個類型與社會人口變項及政治疏離感的關係。結果發現，政治疏離感對於模型的影響力最明顯，民眾的疏離感程度越高，越傾向屬於「疏離型」；而影響廣泛性支持的因素還有民眾的教育程度，隨著受教育年限的增加，落於高廣泛性支持的「支持型」的機會較高，此外，當民眾的廣泛性支持不高時，教育程度的提高會使他們對執政當局感到失望，而轉往「疏離型」當中。而特殊性支持主要受到政黨認同的影響，對民進黨認同的因素影響特殊性支持較高的類型（即「穩定型」與「順從型」），至於民進黨世代的因素顯示，在民進黨成立時取得公民權的民眾有較高的比例屬於廣泛性支持高且特殊性支持也高的「穩定型」而非兩種支持屬性都偏低的「疏離型」。 最後透過政治支持類型與投票經驗的比較發現，在廣泛性支持不高的情形下，特殊性支持也低的「疏離型」民眾，在總統選舉中投廢票與不投票的比例也較高，顯示當體系成員無法對政治體系提供任一種支持時，成員的行為傾向於不去投票，換言之，對台灣這樣的新興民主國家，由於在過去威權體制統治的結構下，即使進入民主政治的時代，體系成員的特殊性支持往往較廣泛性支持容易獲得滿足，因此為順利的邁向民主鞏固，應該提高體系成員的廣泛性支持，而非一味提高特殊性支持以避免社會動員過度熱情，尤其在民主價值與民主政治的層面上，更需要體系成員培養共同守護的信念，從而使民主運作更加根深蒂固。

Is support for democracy decreasing among the young? Attitudes among the young tell us about the future of democracy. Today, support is declining in the USA and researchers disagree about whether the same is true for Western Europe. Some researchers believe that there is cause for concern while others argue that the young generation is more tolerant and have higher aspirations for democracy, which means that we do not need to worry. According to the theory of generational replacement and its scarcity and socialization hypotheses, diffuse support for democracy as well as tolerance should be stable or even increasing in the young cohorts. Using a quantitative method and data from the European Values Study, these parameters along with specific support will be measured in the countries of Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden, which are most-likely cases to have strong support for democracy among citizens. The main findings are that diffuse support seems to be stable in the young cohort in all countries except Denmark, where there is a slight decline. Specific support fluctuates over time and tolerance is highest among the young cohort but declining over time in the older cohorts in Denmark and Norway. The results predict that support for democracy will remain although there are some signs of challenges ahead.