Abstract
Political trust underpins a government’s track record of policy implementation, affecting steering, messages, resources and administrative preferences. The purpose of this chapter is to explore the main schools of thought on arguments linking different elements of political trust with mechanisms of policy implementation. To that end, the chapter specifies the ways trust contributes to the success or failure of the implementation of policy initiatives, reforms and processes. Lower levels of trust decrease administrative capacity and widen problem intractability increasing non-cooperation and coordination. Trust provides unity and solidarity, and either vertical or horizontal, it is directly linked to the confidence that citizens have in policy making actors and implementation institutions. Trust also affects compliance and behaviour therefore, directly linked to success or failure of implementation. The chapter reviews core elements of the concepts of political trust and policy implementation as well as the mechanisms connecting the two, providing key examples from the literature and empirical research. The chapter concludes by offering an outlook of future research agendas and ways to address policy implications and amend theories of policy implementation.