Social and political trust in Istanbul and Moscow: a comparative analysis of individual and neighbourhood effects

Abstract

Aiming to bring local context into studies of social capital, our study uses samples of 4006 individuals in Istanbul and 3476 in Moscow using a comparable questionnaire. The stratification of each city's neighbourhoods on the basis of socio‐economic characteristics provided the basis for the sampling. Using a multilevel modelling procedure, we show both that locality matters (neighbourhood effect proved significant) and that social capital may indeed be constituted in very particular ways in illiberal democracies such as Russia and Turkey. Social and political trust are frequently thought to contribute to social capital – that is, to provide social resources upon which individuals or groups may draw for their political efficacy. Trust in fellow citizens in Istanbul exhibits a positive relationship to associational activities (joining clubs etc.), while in Moscow social trust can be explained predominantly in terms of (lower) socio‐economic status. At the same time, important similarities emerged between the two cases. For social trust, in both cities the ‘cosmopolitanization thesis’, which holds that those who associate more widely are also more trusting of fellow citizens, generally applied. Further, in both cities, residents with lower socio‐economic status (though in Moscow this is complicated by education) and lower likelihoods of engagement in direct political action were more trustful of parliament. While this is the opposite of what we have been led to expect based on Western democratic polities, it is a reasonable outcome of illiberal democratic governance operating in these two cities.

Loneliness and health in Eastern Europe: findings from Moscow, Russia

“…Within Russia, Moscow can be regarded as a unique place which has been at the forefront of social and economic change in the post-Soviet period. Although it is by far the wealthiest city in Russia, many of its citizens have nevertheless experienced extreme financial hardship in the transition period, 17 with the city having the highest level of inequality in the Russian Federation (as measured by the Gini coefficient). 18 Crime has increased sharply in the city since the collapse of communism, while there has also been a large growth in its population 18 (while Russia's population has been decreasing) which may have also acted to exacerbate socio-economic strain in the transition period.…”

Relationships of Horizontalism and Hierarchy: Exploring Divergent Forms of Sociopolitical Trust

“…Some research has pursued nonpredictive techniques that do not place social or political trust as the sole dependent variable. Whether for samples of many countries (Kaase, 1999; Newton, 2001; Tan and Tambyah, 2011) or just one or two countries (Brehm and Rahn, 1997; Secor and O'Loughlin, 2005), social and political trust have a positive (although usually weak) relationship. This relationship has also been modeled in a variety of ways that use predictive techniques (often linear regression).…”

Differentiating Trust in Rural Decision-making, Drawing on an English Case Study

“…Within this social capital context, trust, it has been argued, is highest where citizens can fully participate in their (democratic) civil societies (Fukuyama 1995; Rose et al. 1997) and (at least to some extent) their institutions (Newton 2001; Secor and O'Loughlin 2004). High trust societies offer the greatest potential for long‐term co‐operative and communal partnerships through civil society (Fukuyama 1995) because they build confidence and reliability into community decision‐making.…”

“…Khodyakov (2007) suggests that they are limited to an assessment of undifferentiated macro‐notions of social capital. Cook (2005) says that this macro level creates difficulties for theoretical development and empirical research relative to the definitions by Bourdieu (1986) and Coleman (1988) of micro social capital that limit social capital to the resources that people obtain through their personal networks (Secor and O'Loughlin 2004). In addition, institutional (or system) trust is seen as being largely superior to individual (or personal) trust in these assessments (Uzzi 1997) despite the fact that the two can have a strong influence on each other (Parry 1976).…”