本文討論的是臺灣民眾在不同面向的政治信任差異。政治信任差異指的是民眾對代表不同政黨的政治人物，或對分立政府下的行政與立法部門產生明顯信任態度上的落差。政治信任差異的出現，雖然是民主國家中的常態，但顯著的政治信任差異的存在，最主要的原因還是因為民主化後國家認同議題成為臺灣政黨政治競爭的主軸，這個議題的激化導致了民眾傾向信任代表自身群體的政治行為者，但卻不容易信任代表對立群體的政治行為者，這樣就產生了對政治行為者的政治信任差異。這樣的信任差異會進一步影響民眾對政府與民主政體的信任，因為一方面政府是由政治人物以及政黨所組織的，所以對不同黨政治人物的信任會影響到對政府的信任；他方面誰執政也會進一步影響到選民對民主體制的評估，甚至對民主價值的支持，因為反對黨的選民希望政府的權力受到限制，但執政黨的選民卻不會這麼希望。此外研究也發現統獨議題強度越高的民眾，越表現出對政治人物以及對政府部門的政治信任差異。在實證的研究上，本文透過1998第四屆立委訪問調查資料以及2003 TEDS調查資料，來支持理論的預測。

This paper discusses political trust differences in three dimensions in Taiwan. Trust differences refer to people's divergent trust attitudes toward politicians of different camps or their trust attitudes toward the executive and legislature branches under divided governments. Although trust differences are common in democracy, they constitute a more salient issue in Taiwan. The reason for this is mainly that, following the onset of democratization, divisions in national identity become the dominant theme in political competition. Such social cleavage induces people to mistrust political actors representing other ethnic groups, while making it easy for them to trust political actors within their own group. Hence, political trust differences are generated. Trust in one dimension is associated with trust in another dimension since parties form governments. Besides, who governs is likely to affect people's evaluation of democracy and even democratic values. Those who vote for the Opposition wish to restrict the power of the ruling party, while voters who support the ruling party are against such a thought. In addition, this study also finds that people with firm opinions on Independence-Unification issues tend to embrace greater political trust differences. Empirical tests using surveys of the 1998 Legislative Yuan election and the 2003 TEDS support the theoretical predictions.