Replication Data for: Trust in Government and American Public Opinion Toward Foreign Aid

Since the end of World War II, the United States government has spent nearly $4 trillion on humanitarian, economic, and military assistance to other countries. Despite the benefits that foreign aid programs can yield to both donor and recipient countries, mass support for foreign aid spending has long been lacking. Here, I argue that trust in the national government, which is similarly lacking among the U.S. public, plays an important, and heretofore, underappreciated role in shaping public opinion toward foreign aid. Despite having little connection to domestic national politics and the mixed evidence, at best, from extant research regarding the potential for political trust to shape mass opinion on this issue, I find, using cross-sectional and panel survey data from the United States, a robust, positive, and substantively significant relationship between political trust and support for government spending on foreign aid. Overall, these findings help use to better understand the drivers of mass support for U.S. foreign aid spending and, more broadly touches on a debate regarding whether the United States should continue its long-standing role of global leadership or turn inwards. These findings also underscore the political consequences of citizen trust in government.