Trust in American government peaked in 1964. After Watergate, it never recovered. Today, partisan trust has collapsed to historic lows.
Partisan trust—how warmly Democrats and Republicans feel toward each other—collapsed from 53% in 1978 to just 19% in 2024. This isn't a temporary dip. It's a structural transformation in American political culture.
Three out of four countries saw rule of law decline in the last decade. These didn't.
While 75 countries declined, Moldova surged 14 points through anti-corruption reforms and EU integration efforts. Estonia continued its steady climb to become one of the world's strongest rule-of-law states.
Each pillar measured independently. Open data only—no paywalls, no black boxes.
“Can most people be trusted?”
World Values Survey, GSS, ANES, CES
Confidence in government & public institutions
World Values Survey, GSS, ANES, CES
Corruption perceptions & rule of law measures
Transparency International CPI, World Bank WGI
All source data is freely available. See our full methodology for details.
Trust Atlas is open source and open data. Here's how you can help.
Know a public trust survey or governance dataset we're missing? Tell us about it.
See incorrect data, a bug, or something that doesn't look right? Let us know.
Researcher, journalist, or trust expert? We'd love to hear your perspective.
The entire codebase is open. ETL pipelines, API, and frontend—all on GitHub.