In sum, government and its agents might be genuinely trustworthy in many cases, but most citizens cannot be in a position to know that they are. Hence most citizens cannot be said to trust government in any of the standard senses in which individuals can trust one another. This follows for simple epistemological reasons. Most of us most of the time cannot know enough to trust government (or other large institutional) agents or agencies to judge their fit with any of the standard conceptions of trust.

QUESTION: If citizens can't be positioned to know whether government deserves trust, what legitimate basis can political trust rest on?

Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, loc. 780