A claim that is worthy of investigation is whether a government that depends on extensive reciprocal participation by citizens requires trust to work well. Largely for empirical reasons, I argue that even such a claim cannot be sustained—or, rather, it cannot be sustained if what we mean by trust when we speak of trust in government is conceptually the same as what we mean when we speak of trust in another individual. Often, all that is needed for government to work is for citizens not actively to distrust it.

QUESTION: What empirical evidence supports the claim that passive non-distrust suffices for government function? The distinction between active trust and passive tolerance is worth pursuing.

Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, loc. 715