Transcript Trust, social capital and state

Trust, social capital and state
Lecture political science – political
theory 2 – summer semester 2004
University of Fribourg
Program
1. Problem of trust
2. Levels of trust
a) Personal trust
b) Generalized trust
c) Institutional trust – political trust
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State and trust
Democracy and trust
Cultures of trust
Trust as the center of Social capital
Case studies
Trust – the basic problem
• Why do people cooperate?  constraints,  economic interests, 
values: cultural/moral reasons,  personal relations
• Trust is one reason for cooperation: it enables it
• Trust has to do with risk, a gamble, a risky investement under conditons of
uncertainty ( Luhmann 1979 , Levi 1998, Strasser 1997, Seligmann
1997)
• Trust involves expectations: ‘ ….we make predictions (or have
expectations) concerning the behaviour of others. If we are confident that
our predictions will come to pass, we trust these others. Trust thus reduces
complexity by ensuring that the social system is based on mutual
expectations about actors’ future behaviour, encouraging social actors to
select specific options of social action and reaction. The basic function of
coordinating social interaction is achieved, and cooperation, rather than
opportunistic behaviour, is the result.” (Clegg 1996)
Trust the basic problem II: risk and complexity
• “At issue is a cooperative venture, which implies that the truster possesses a
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reasonable belief that well-placed trust will yield positive returns and is
willing to act upon that belief Thus, the observer can tell if an individual is
trusting by noting whether a transaction took place (...) Trust implies a risk to
the truster. In some instances the risk may be so low that we tend to use the
label confidence instead of trust ( Levi 1998)
“… no decisive grounds an be offered for trusting; trust always extrapolates
from the available evidence; it is, as Simmel pointed out, a blending of
knowledge and ignorance… Trust remains a risky undertaking (Luhmann
1987: 26)
“Trust is required for the reduction of a future characterized by more or less
indeterminate complexity” (Luhmann 1987)
Trust the basic problem III: trustworthiness and ethics of trust
• „In modal trust relationships, the trusted party has an incentive to be trustworthy,
an incentive grounded in the value of maintaining the relationship into the future.
That is, my trust of you is encapsulated in your interest in fulfilling the trust. It is
this fact that makes my trust more than merely expectations about your behaviour“
(Hardin 2001: 3)
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„Trust in other people is based upon a fundamental ethical assumption: that other
people share your fundamental values. They don‘t necessarily agree with you
politically or religiously. But at some fundamental level, people accept the
argument that they have common bonds that make cooperation vital. And these
common bonds rest upon assumptions about human nature. The world is a
beneficent place composed of people who are well-intentioned ( and thus
trustworthy) (Uslaner 2003: 2)
Trust the basic problem IV: to
summarize the idea
• In a strategic perspective:
– A trusts B because he presumes it is in B‘s interest to
act in a way consistent with A‘s interest. (M.Levi)
 Is the other trustworthy?
 incentives to be trustworthy
• In a moralistic perspective:
– I trust others because I believe that others share my fundamental
moral values (honest behaviour) (Uslaner)
Trust the basic problem V
• If moralistic trust is, contrary to strategic trust, a moral
dictate to treat people as if they were trustworthy  then
what kind of people are trustworthy, people like us,
friends, people of our own community, or those of the
broader community?
• Why do we trust – distrust them?
– Personal experiences, socialisation, experiences with institutions,
tell us, wether we have dispositions to trust
– Trust / distrust depends on the disappointments we made in the
past
• Levels of trust
– Personal level: personal trust: families, kinship groups
– Generalized trust among strangers
– Institutional trust, trust in politics
1. Personal trust
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Is it Strategic trust?
It‘s based on experience
Familiarity = Vertrautheit
Can we still speak of trust in the case of closely
knit networks  low risk
•  commitment -> familal trust
• Traditional form of trust: you trust only in a
familiar world, you distrust strangers
• How exclusive is personal trust?
2. Generalized/Extended trust
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Trust among strangers
„Most people can be trusted“ ? = trusting people we don’t know
It’s not based on experience
Moral foundation? (Uslaner)  positive view of strangers: Do you
consider others to be a part of your moral communitiy?
• Standards of reciprocity
• Golden Rule
• Importance of third-party and third-party enforcement
3. Institutional trust
• Faith in institutions = Is it possible? as faith in holders?
Capacity of government to do the job well  confidence
• Trust in Government: is it really important?
• Trust in government is declining
• Problem of trustworthiness of institutions
• Importance of distrust: institutionalized distrust and
distrust in government
• Causal link between institutions and generalized trust
– Role of the state as „third party enforcement“: do we trust others
because we have faith in the effectiveness of institutions?
– Trust in political institutions: because we trust others?
Role of State institutions for generalized trust
• Third-party enforcement = impartial enforcement by a legitimate state
 facilitates trust
• States guarantee markets, protect rights, facilitate cooperation
• Third-party enforcement supports and increases generalized trust 
which increases faith in effectiveness of political and legal institutions
• Levi speaks of transference of trust  facilitating trust  facilitating
cooperation
• High level of (generalized) Trust  institutional efficiency  strength
Role of the state in promoting generalized trust
• States can promote generalized trust (Levy)
• Condition: the state has to be trustworthy
– Honesty and competence of bureaucracy creates chances for
cooperative behaviour and belief in trustworthiness of bureaucrats
• Compliance = depends on perception that governement acts in the
interest of citizens, that procedures are fair
• = conditions of contingent consent (Levy 88): „Contingent consent is a
citizen‘s decision to comply or volunteer in response to demands from
a government only if she perceives government as trustoworthy and
she is satisfied that other citzens are also engaging in ethical
reciprocity“
• Ethical reciprocity – cooperate under condition that others also
cooperate
Trustworthiness of institutions – Hardin
• Legitimacy, support and trust
– How many of us invest in trust in government?
– How much distrust in government is necessary?
– Who controls the government? Importance of opposition groups
for trustworthiness – relation of failing and distrust
– How important are low voter turnouts for explaining distrust/trust?
• „having only 5 percent of the citizenry alert and committed to
politics is all it takes to make things work“ (Hardin 2002: 163)
• Experience with institutions: reputation of being trustworthy
– „Most of the time, we can inductively suppose that an organization
that has been performing well in some sense is likely to continue to
do so unless its conditons are altered“ (172)
Efficiency of institutions and
generalized trust
• Individual experience with the efficiency or inefficiency of
institutions  disappointments with instititutions or the officials
representing them (Rothstein 2000 and Rothstein/Stolle 2002)
• Importance of judicial system and police  if people trust
effectiveness and fairness of these systems  generalized trust
would be facilitated ( see table trust in institutions)
• Effectiveness means: are they able to punish „treacherous“
behaviour
• Importance of memory: historical record of these institutuions
with regard to fairness and effeciveness  collective memory
about actual operations of institutions (Rothstein 2000: 492)
• Have a look at the society where generalized trust is supposed to
develop: Inclusive and exclusive societies  different cultures of
trust
• Trust building institutions = Inclusion = equality = identy of
community = range of trust
Countervailing powers and trust: interdependency of strong State,
strong economy and strong civil society
Economy
Political system
Civil society
Democracy and trust – Levi
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Democracy as a prerequisite of an appropriately trusting citizenry and
trustworthy government  institutional protections  skepticism + distrust
Influence of democracy:
– Information  protection of civil liberties, free speech, free assembly,
and free press
– Inclusion  citizenship  preferences
– Democracy  change of preferences  new practices  new values
– Citizen control of government action  change their behavior 
cooperation  commitments
– Democracy  inclusion of concerned contingent consent 
compliance
Importance of distrust in democracy – Levi: The healthy skepticism of
citizens is a prerequisite of democracy -
Democracy and trust – Levi II
• “Democracy creates as well as solves problems for
building citizen trust in their government. The free press
and oversight institutions of democracies put government
actors under extraordinary scrutiny. Open discussion
about government actions contributes to its trustworthiness
by providing a check on obfuscation and secret promises
(or promise-breaking). Free speech permits a level of
public and scientific debate that eliminates certain abuses
by lowering the costs to the normal citizen of both
information-gathering and monitoring. It is impossible in
this day and age, for example, to hide nuclear testing or to
make the claim that it is safe. The current government of
France has promoted distrust of itself by failing to
understand these simple facts“ (Margaret Levy)
Democracy and trustworthiness of government
Political Institutionns = rules of the game /
constraints (elections, media, party
competition, change of government,
responsability of government,
independant courts etc.)
Institutionalized
„distrust“ – pressure,
scepticism of public
opinion
Distrust /
trust
Political actors
Public /
citizen
Distrust /
trust
Governments, politicians,
officials
Trust, Democracy, politics and
knowledge
• How confident can we be, that the „right“,
competent politicians are being elected. How do
we evaluate competence in politics / of
governments – contrary to other social areas:
science (universities), medical doctors, engineers.
• Criteria of our election: candidates operate with a
mix of competence, values and interests (Hardin)
• But in politics interests are dominating. Otherwise
why would we have competing experts in politics.
What are interests, our interests in this case
• Often even expert knowledge is not available
Trust, Democracy, politics and
knowledge II
• How can citizens evaluate the effects of policies. How can he
know what is a good policy?
• We are adopting very often one among other expert opinions,
because it corresponds to our values. Evaluation of the
influences of authority of experts
–  Which knowledge deserves our trust? Which sources?
Which experts?
• Democratic choice does not mean choice of the dominant
scientific truth. Both are not clearly distinguished. INTERESTS
are in the centre of politics. INTERESTS vs. TRUTH
• We are always deciding according to our opinions, dispositions,
interests: We should discover the blind spot in our own
judgements. We cannot trust ourselves to be able to make the
right choice.
Cultures of trust – distrust – the case of Central and
Eastern Europe
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Cultures of trust – distrust – meaning
– specific patterns of norms and networks
– Premodern structures of trust: clientelism and power networks in countries
of former USSR, familism, politics based on old and new personal
networks
– Cultural and political gap between countries of central Europe and
countries from the former Soviet-Union – some of these countries cannot
be considered anymore as transition countries
Can we really speak of low trust societies?
– Explanations? Origins of trust / distrust?
– The question concerning the causal link between institutional and
interpersonal trust is not at all academic, since we have to face particularly
in third world countries but also in post-communist societies of Central
and Eastern Europe huge variations of cooperation and differences in the
cultures of trust.
Trust – distrust in Central and Eastern Europe
• Low Trust societies
• Reasons for the failure of the establishment of institutionalized
structures of trust
– Old elites
– Old rules of law
– Betrayal of promises
– Corruption
– Culture of „secret“
– arbitrary,
– No routine procedures
– Money  mafia
Trust – distrust in Central and Eastern
Europe – different explanations II
– Implications for analysis: What kind of theories do we
need?
– Is trust culturally determined? Path-dependant? =
cultural theories
• Levels of generalized trust in society determine predispositions
to democratic institutions: “government is as good as its
people”
• Consequence: change of values difficult, trust in democratic
institutions would take decades (R. Rose)
• Critics: relationship between interpersonal trust and trust in
political institutions: direction of causal arrow:
– interpersonal /generalized trust  political trust or
– Political trust / democracy  interpersonal/generalized trust
Trust – distrust in Central and Eastern
Europe – different explanations III
• Is trust generated by institutional performance =
Institutional theories
• Institutional theories: culture can condition institutions but is
not derministic
• Democratic institutions are catalysts of trust – by providing
economic growth and good governance practices
• Trust is being considered as a function of performance of
institutions: economic performance
• In postcommunist countries: add the political character of
institutions  good governance practices
Importance of political and economic
performance for trust in institutions
– Mishler / Rose: “Trust or distrust in political institutions
is substantially endogenous and largely determined by
the political and economic performance of new
democracies”(2001: 55)
– Little effect of generalized trust on institutional trust
•  nature of Communist regime control
• Political trust in post-communist societies determined by
institutional performance
• Consequence: scepticism since bad economic perfomance
– Prospects for change: governments can generate
political trust  good governance, institutions can earn
trust through efficient economic policies  welfare
To summarize: causal relationship between
generalized trust and trust in institutions I
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Two questions (see slide 11 and 15 – Rothstein 2000, p. 491):
– Are we confident about political institutions because we trust other
people?  argument of Putnam  social capital  The more people
trust other people, the more they tend to have confidence in political
institutions.
– Or do we trust other people because we are confident about the effective
working of institutions? = Trust „from above“ ? :
• If people believe that the institutions that are responsible for handling
‚treacherous‘ behaviour act in a fair, just and effective manner, and if
they also believe that other people think the same of these institutions,
then they will also trust other people.“(Rothstein 2000: 492)
• Importance of institutions of law and order  third party enforcement
 trust in universalism and impartialitiy of institutions 
treacherous behaviour punished (slide 12, Rothstein 2002:22-26)
– Importance of collective memory for a culture of trust: who defines it, who
can change it? Influence of political leaders on a given belief system?
To summarize: causal relationship between generalized trust
and trust in institutions II: social capital
• „The more universal, uncorrupted and impartial the government
institutions responsible fo the implemention of laws and policies are,
the more social capital your will get“(Rothstein 2002)
•  importance of institutions for generating social capital
 Let‘s have a look now to another approach, based on a „buttom up“
perspective – Putnam‘s theory of social capital, the link between trust,
networks and institutional success = Society-Centered Model – and
then we will come back to Rothsteins institutional approach
Trust as a central component of Social capital
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Cooperation is facilitated if a community has inherited a substantial stock of
social capital in the form of norms of reciprocity and networks of civic
engagement (Putnam 1993: 167)
Social capital = features of social organization, such as trust, norms and
networks, that can improve the efficiency of society by facilitating coordinated
actions
– Networks
– Norms of reciprocity - « Golden rule »
– trust
The function of social capital is to enable individuals to achieve things they
could not otherwise achieve so well…. “Coleman  Hardin
For the Worldbank social capital "refers to the networks and relationships that
both encourage trust and reciprocity and shape the quality and quantity of a
society’s social interactions. The level of social capital has a significant impact
on a range of development processes”(World Bank 2000: 18, see
www.worldbank.org/poverty/scapital/index.htm.
Production and reproduction of social capital: trust
and norms
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Accumulation of social capital: social capital, such as trust, social norms and
networks increase with use and diminish with disuse: virtuous and vicious
circles
Public good = typically undersupplied: we underinvest in trust formation
(Generalized) Trust arises from norms and networks of civic engagement
(Putnam 1993: 171)
– If members of the group come to expect that others will behave reliably
and honestly, then they will come to trust one another (Fukuyama 2000:
98)
– Norms that produce social capital: include virtues such as truth telling,
meeting obligations, reciprocity
– Norms of reciprocity (combination of altruism, solidarity and selfinterest)
Production of social capital: trust and networks
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Trustworthiness  networks of social exchange  norms of reciprocity
Formal and informal networks / Vertical and horizontal networks
Networks of civic engagment = form of social capital  encourage
cooperation (avoid opportunism, foster norms of reciprocity, reputations)
Different societies  different radius of trust  different cultures of trust 
different stocks of social capital
– Example: sthrength of family bonds differs from society to society
(Fukuyama 2000: 99)
– Difference between „warm“ and „cold“ societies
– We come back to importance of generalized trust: Virtues like honesty and
reciprocity practiced outside the family – Importance of weak ties 
Networks of civic engagement cut across social cleavages = cooperation
on the community level
– Dense horizontal networks  strong society  strong state
Putnams strong society – strong state thesis and its
critics
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Social capital = horizontal networks of civic engagement  performance of
polity and economy
Weakness of civil society = vertical networks  no cooperation  no trust 
weak institutional weakness
Virtuous circles = reproduction of social capital – cumulative and serlfreinforcing  high levels of cooperation, trust reciprocitiy, civic engagement
and collective well-being (Putnam 1993: 177)
Networks (formal and informal) = creators of social capital
Critics (ex. Rothstein/Stolle 2002, Portes/Landolt 1996))
– Relation between membership and social capital is not clear
– Determinism of the theory: social capital determined by history
– What are the really important interactions for the creation of social
capital?  good and bad networks, organizations -> dark side of social
capital
Critics Putnams social capital theory II
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Norms of cooperation in any particular network are likely to change from one
situation to another. They can represent social capital in one context and
unsocial capital in another --> negative social capital, Mafia, Oklahoma
bomber,  exclusion
Two faces of networks: they can be agencies of development or "rent-seekers
depleting the public treasury and inhibiting economic growth."
What‘s the logic of causal mechanism?: trust  state performance: How
trusting people create better service performance? Does governmental
performance influence trust? - Rothstein/Stolle 2002  Importance of
institutions of order and implementation for generalized trust
Problems of measuring social capital
Problems of definition – risk of circularity
Problems of aggregation: link between micro and society level