Replication Data for How Political Trust Matters in Emergent Democracies: Evidence from East and Southeast Asia

How does political trust affect the competing pressures of policy versus political performance in emergent democracies? Studies suggest that political trust buffers against these pressures, but empirical evidence is lacking while the risks of democratic reversal loom large. This paper investigates how political trust matters in emergent democracies, specifically, if political trust buffers against public pressures, and whether it is system-directed versus incumbent-directed, for East and Southeast Asia. The evidence from multiple waves of survey data provides three useful insights: first, they show political trust supersedes economic expectations in support for the democratizing system; this supports political trust as a buffer for the political system and is system-directed. Second, political trust goes hand-in-hand with economic performance to explain support for the incumbent-government. This finding clarifies that political trust does not buffer the government against public pressure for performance. Third, taken together, the results show that economic growth may keep a government in office but institution-building leads to political trust that undergirds the political system, so that institution-building is a priority for stability in emergent democracies.