Trust, Social

Origins of the Concept of Social Trust

The idea of trust can be found in various political thinkers from different ages, but its current understanding as trust in others within a community or a set of social networks can most prominently be traced back to Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America. He wrote that in 19th-century America vast numbers of associations “are formed and maintained by the agency of private individuals” on the basis of trust and shared interests. From this perspective, trust is strongly related to associational life, which in turn facilitates the pursuit of common goals that would be harder to achieve through purely individual efforts. The link between trust, secondary associations, and democracy has been emphasized by many authors throughout the second half of the 20th century and still attracts a lot of attention, particularly because indicators have shown a significant decrease in social trust, a point that we will return to later.

In the late 1950s, an influential culturalist approach to politics put the concept and measurement of social trust at the center of the academic debate. The Civic Culture study, published in 1963, established a theoretical and empirical relationship between trust and democracy. The authors, Gabriel Almond and Sydney Verba, conceived of trust as a component of a democratic political culture. In their view, stable democracy requires a set of democratic values and beliefs that supports it, and trust in others is one of those values. Their book, based on survey data from five nations, reinforced the idea that social trust is a condition for the formation of secondary associations and, as a consequence, a feature that fosters the development of a participatory society, a pillar of democracy.

The relationship between social trust and democracy was very persuasive, and it had a great impact on subsequent empirical political research. As trust was part of a more general democratic political culture, higher levels of interpersonal trust were consequently linked to higher levels of democratization. Subsequent research has shown that social trust is related to effective democratic governance, not only because secondary associations are a vital part of democracy but also because trust enhances the development of a loyal opposition respecting the “rules of the game,” facilitates self-compliance of political agreements, and fosters tolerance. Democratic politics is based on rules and procedures that require the acceptance and compliance of the parts, and trust is a positive intervening factor. It is important to note that the close relationship between social trust and democracy as a form of government does not mean that trusting other people is the same as trusting political institutions. Social trust and political trust, generally understood as confidence in political institutions, may be related, but they are two different concepts, and each one is subject to different explanations.

...