This paper examines patterns of popular trust in political and public institutions in
Nepal. Thereafter, the paper examines to what extent such trust is linked to, on the
one hand, Nepalese citizens' social and political identities, and on the other hand, to
citizens' perceptions of institutional performance. Our findings demonstrate that trust
varies extensively among different public institutions. Trust is high in a number of
professional institutions such as schools and hospitals. It is also quite high in local
government institutions such as the Village/Town and District Development
Committees. Trust in the parliament and the government is much lower. Second,
identity based trust such as demographic and social characteristic of respondents, their
caste, religious, and political identities have less explanatory power on the level of
citizens’ trust in political and public institutions compared to performance based
variables. Trust in political and public institutions primarily depend upon how citizens
assess the performance of such institutions. Hence, patterns of institutional trust
depend very much on how respondents evaluate the current macro political situation
of Nepal, whether recent political changes are judged to be in the right direction.