According
to the political-cultural approach, individual's level of social trust is
the main factor to explain individual's level of political trust. But the
results of empirical research are somewhat differentiated with no
conclusive verdict. Based on data from 2012 Taiwan Social Change Survey,
this study analyzed the personal background factors including gender, age,
education level, ethnicity, resident area, belief on human nature,
self-evaluated social standing, and political inclination, to explore the
relevance of each variable on personal social trust and political trust.
Our findings suggest: 1) Personal social trust had significant positive
effects on political trust. 2) The effect of gender, education level and
ethnic background could not be reasonably explained by the
political-cultural approach. 3) The explanation of relevance between
social trust and political trust by the political-culture approach has its
limitations, because individual's social trust could not be fully passed
on to the individual's political trust. Therefore, this study shows that
more studies are needed in order to explore the conversion mechanism
between social trust and political trust.