Introduction Citizens’ trust in government institutions and their political support for development are important preconditions for a democratic and sustainable form of development. In the context of tourism, it is important that residents of a destination endorse development and tourism policies of government to ensure sustainability and good governance of the sector. Recognition that communities are central to tourism development and one of the most important groups of stakeholders has led researchers to conduct numerous studies on residents’ support for tourism development and its antecedents. Whereas early studies on this topic were of an atheoretical nature, researchers have increasingly made use of theories such as social exchange theory (SET), originally drawn from sociology, to understand the ways in which residents react to tourism development and the circumstances that prompt them to do so. On one hand, use of SET has strengthened the theoretical base of and has made signifi cant contributions to this area of research; on the other hand, some researchers found the theory to lack predictive power in explaining residents’ support for tourism development. This is probably because researchers failed to consider important variables of the theory simultaneously in an integrative framework. Key constructs such as power and trust have been left out by most studies on this topic. It is also important that SET complement other theoretical approaches so that new insights are uncovered in this area of study. For example, institutional theory of political trust and cultural theory of political trust are valuable perspectives to consider because they provide contrasting, but valuable, insights on the potential determinants of political trust in tourism development.