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Political trust is essential for effective policy implementation, yet declining levels of trust create a vicious cycle where diminished public confidence undermines policy responsiveness, leading to further erosion of trust. This dissertation explores how specific public policies can foster political trust and examines how trust itself influences the relationship between governance structures and political attitudes, particularly concerning support for climate policies. In Chapter 2, I examine the impact of self-targeting public policies, where citizens can choose to opt into benefits, on political trust. My empirical analysis reveals that self-targeting enhances confidence in local government compared to pre-targeting approaches, which do not yield significant results. The findings suggest that policy design, particularly the targeting mechanism, plays a critical role in shaping political attitudes. Chapter 3 argues that bottom-up policies that are participatory in nature, like the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), can help mitigate the negative effect of inequalities on political trust. Using a quasi-experimental framework, I find strong evidence in support of this argument, reinforcing the importance of inclusive policy design in enhancing democratic processes. The final chapter shifts focus to governance structures, exploring how exposure to non-state climate actions influences climate policy support in less polarized contexts. My results indicate that while exposure does not directly affect policy support, citizens with higher political trust are less likely to hold governments accountable for climate inaction. This underscores the critical need to understand the nuanced role of political trust as a mediator for climate policy support.