Natural resource extraction and political trust

•Resource extraction has important subnational consequences.•Resource extraction provides important economic benefits to district residents.•Resource extraction increases political trust subnationally.•Subnational findings are not inconsistent with the resource curse literature.

Do natural resources influence political trust? I provide a new answer to this question by articulating a theory of political trust that relates to within-country variation in natural resource extraction rather than the more traditional empirical context of cross-country variation. The distributional consequences of natural resources within countries have a large, positive consequences on political trust. Residents within a mining district may experience disproportionate economic benefits compared to residents living in a non-mining district. These economic benefits, in turn, influence political trust. I test these arguments using Afrobarometer public opinion data in four democratic African states, namely Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, and South Africa.