台灣的代議政治，由於受制政治變遷的影響，一直無法進入正常的運作，尤其在兩千年政黨輪替之後，更是演展成黨際之間的惡門，行政與立法時常發生對立衝突的僵局，以致代議政治受到主權者的信任度不高，未能達及信任門檻。本文的主要目的之一在於深度鋪陳，這項信任門檻不是的十項徵候，藉以引其擔負政治運轉的政黨及其主要職司的正視，進而運用典範的治理知識加以轉型。本文的第二個重點在於申論：在信任門檻不足的情況下，台灣業已顯露出信任替代的現象，亦即對失去信任門檻的機制、機關或個人，產生消極失望的行為，抑或積極試圖影響信任對象的作為，一來警醒其改弦更張，進行策略性形象管理，用以恢復或取得應有的信任，二來採取反制的行動，試圖削減其政策轄區、權力範圍，或以其他機制突破政治衝突的瓶頸，借用主權者的力量，落實其天賦人權及憲法所賦予的權利，不願再居於外控的地位，而採取主動要求政策的回應力。

Since the 2000 election and the regime change that followed, the proper function of representative politics in Taiwan has been stalled. This stems from the antagonism between ruling and opposition parties, and the stalemate that resulted from the confrontation between administrative and legislative sectors, which in turn caused levels of trust among the electorate to dip below the "trust threshold." The article urges major political parties in Taiwan's political arena and their leaders to pay attention to the ten signs that warn of the failure to reach an adequate "trust threshold", and to utilize paradigmatic knowledge of governance to correct this failure. This article also provides an in-depth analysis of the electorate's political behavior. When there is a low level of trust among the electorate, the "trust substitution" phenomenon occurs. That is, the erosion of the electorate's trust in political institutions and their electoral representatives could lead to a sense of disappointment and malaise. But it could also arouse a passionate desire to affect political change: first, by forcing their elected representatives to regain the electorate's trust through strategic image management; second, by constraining the authority and jurisdiction of their representatives or by resorting to other mechanisms to break through the bottleneck caused by political conflicts. Thus, by asserting their natural and constitutional rights, the political activism of the electorate enables them to directly demand policy responsiveness.