In the case of the U.S., surveys find that the public has much higher confidence in state and local government than in the federal government, which makes sense—the closer the unit of government is to the people, the more people can understand it and relate to it more directly. This is one reason why the relentless centralization of government in Washington over the last half-century is the enemy of public trust in national government.

The second thing to ask is what do the “high trust” countries at the top of the list (Switzerland, Luxembourg, etc) have in common? Aside from a small territorial footprint in most cases, they tend to be more demographically homogenous. In other words, “diversity” isn’t their strength. Even some leading liberal social scientists have had to admit this.