Elections convert political confidence into trust, but vertrust can revert when influence seems futile.

Evidence

A relation of confidence may turn into one of trust if it becomes possible (or is seen to be possible) to avoid that relation. Thus elections may to some extent convert political confidence into political trust, at least if your party wins. Conversely, trust can revert to mere confidence when the opinion spreads that you cannot really influence political behaviour through the ballot. As a participant in the economy you necessarily must have confidence in money. Otherwise you would not accept it as part of everyday life without deciding whether or not to accept it. In this sense money has always been said to be based on ‘social contract’ (for a recent example see Lagerspetz 1984). — Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking Cooperative…, 1383

Categorization

• XREF: Percolates directly into the Hardin/Luhmann integration: money and electoral systems as mechanisms that shift expectations between confidence and trust when alternatives become observable. — connects to: Skepticism toward government lies can convert into apathy rather than critique. — Nina Eliasoph, Avoiding politics: how Americans…, 1018