Why Both Theory and Empirics Suggest There is More than One Form of Trust: A Response to Hooghe Justin Fisher, Jennifer van Heerde-Hudson and Andrew Tucker Keywords: trust; parties; politicians; theory and empirics As Marc Hooghe suggests, the study of political trust is of fundamental importance in political science research. We are delighted that our article has provoked debate and welcome Hooghe’s contribution (Hooghe 2011, 269–275). There is much to think about in his piece and he makes a number of interesting points. However, we reject his principal criticisms of our article (Fisher et al. 2010, 161–188) on the basis of theory, empirical method and, perhaps most seriously, an apparent lack of awareness of contemporary literature on trust. We begin with the last. Hooghe asserts that there is only one form of trust and suggests this is a function primarily of political culture. Yet, while we would expect our different forms of trust to vary in importance by country—either because of institutional arrangements (consensus vs. majoritarian for example) or through accepted norms in political behaviour—it is overly simplistic (and therefore in our view, quite erroneous) then to assert that there is only one form of trust and that this form of trust applies universally across institutions within a political culture. Indeed, Hooghe’s approach seems to betray a lack of familiarity with a growing body of work on political trust. We would be delighted if we were the first to suggest that trust may have more than one dimension. However, in this respect, there are others who have also argued that a single form of trust may conceal important conceptual and empirical differ- ences in trust. If Hooghe is concerned that identifying distinctions between forms of trust could mislead future academic debate, he may indeed be too late, or akin to closing the barn door after the horse has bolted. We are the first to identify three forms—strategic, moral and deliberative—however, our investigation of different forms of trust finds familiarity in an established and growing body of work on theorising and measuring trust (Yamagishi and Yamagishi 1994; Hibbing and Theiss-Morse 1995; Newton 1999; Uslaner 2002). In this response we highlight two recent pieces that have taken up the same task as we do—linking theory and empirics. Robert Putnam’s (1995) work on social capital has reinvigorated scholarship on trust and, in particular, the role of interpersonal trust in generating social capital. Here, scholars have distinguished two forms of interpersonal trust: generalised trust—trust in strangers or unknown individuals, and particularised trust—trust in known persons such as family, friends and neigh- bours or those in close social proximity. Thus, contingent upon social proximity, the doi: 10.1111/j.1467-856X.2010.00448.x BJPIR: 2011 VOL 13, 276–281 © 2011 The Authors. British Journal of Politics and International Relations © 2011 Political Studies Association