The State and the Creation of an Environment for the Growing of Trust

Abstract

There is a growing interest in the literature on trust and social capital in the analysis of the role of the State in the creation and destruction of trust. According to some authors, the intervention of the State crowds out trust instead of fostering it. In this article, the author shows that the intervention of the State as a third-party enforcer of agreements does not crowd out expectations of trust, but it does not create trust either. However, it is further shown that the absence or inefficacy of the State does destroy trust. This last idea is illustrated with a classical case in the social capital literature: Southern Italy in the modern period.

Enhancing feelings of security: How institutional trust promotes interpersonal trust

“…The relationship between institutions and interpersonal trust has been debated, however, especially in light of institutions' key role in providing rules and normative expectations [7,11]. The main claim of the so-called crowding-out approaches is that interpersonal trust becomes no longer relevant if institutions are in place.…”

“…Accordingly, institutions initially enforce trustworthy interactions through external rules, but after repeated successful interactions, individuals would not rely on mere assurance anymore, generalizing their beliefs about others' benevolence to other settings [32]. In fact, evidence shows that societies with efficient institutions, operationalized for example as societies with high level of democracy or effectiveness in enforcing agreements between strangers, display greater levels of interpersonal trust, as compared to countries with inefficient institutions [7,9].…”

“…In the last two decades, research has been conducted to understand whether certain features of the institutional setting (e.g., performance, efficiency, and fairness) can favor the development of interpersonal trust among strangers [6][7][8][9][10], often leading to opposite predictions [11]. Also, little empirical evidence for the key mechanisms underlying a presumed association between institutions and interpersonal trust is provided in the research literature (e.g., [12]), largely relying on survey studies within one particular society and a limited set of institutions.…”

Social capital formation in mexican <em>ejidos</em>. Land decisions after the article 27 constitutional reform

“…a historical conflicts review Some scholars have already related local history to the development of trust and social capital with the state (Herreros, 2008). In Mexico, the existence of reliable institutions during the construction of the post-revolutionary state was complex.…”

“…The La Antigua case is closer to this latter type and the weak social capital seems to be fundamental to the decline of the ejido structure. The effects of the reform on the La Antigua ejido structures are dependent on its locational, historical, social and market links and conditions, as well as the efficient coordination of local state bodies (Gertz 2008;Herreros, 2008).…”