This article explores how citizens' attitudes toward policies depend on institutional credibility.
The Core Problem: Citizens face uncertainty about whether promised benefits will actually be delivered because of agency loss and time inconsistency issues.
How We Tested It: Using three survey experiments with representative U.S. samples to examine the effects of institutional rules and authority allocation on public investment support.
What We Found: Institutional context significantly impacts citizen trust, revealing that voters respond to credible commitments rather than just promises.
Implications: The findings illuminate citizens' capacity for sophisticated political reasoning about investments in valued social goods.
