The question is whether some countries do better than others at fostering identities strong enough to promote social trust among all citizens. It is hypothesized that these states will tend to be more democratic than ones with less social trust. It can be reasoned that social trust is important in consolidating democratic regimes, since for a democracy to function, citizens must trust that the elections have been fair, the officials are not corrupt, and that the government is representing their interests. By accepting the results of an election, a citizen is implicitly trusting every other citizen to choose the right candidate. At the same time, a certain level of political distrust keeps government in check, since citizens demand transparency and accountability from elected leaders. Distrust, wrote German sociologist Claus Offe, is not the opposite of trust: practices such as investigative journalism in fact make institutions more trustworthy by serving as a credible outside audit. In business, trust lowers transaction costs: if you trust another party, you do not need to pay to monitor them or enforce agreements, and you can enter into transactions beyond what can be directly enforced.

Although the average amount or prevalence of trust in a society is what is of interest, the nature of its origins as stemming from either the individual or the societal level are also provocative. At the individual level, theories have been advanced which posit that traits such as optimism, life satisfaction, social status, and anxiety influence how trusting a person is of others. Other scholars feel that trust is less at the whim of the idiosyncrasies of the individual and more determined by circumstances beyond his or her control, such as association membership, networks of friends, community safety, and incidence of social conflicts. Of course, the reality is that trust is formed by a mixture of the two. Unfortunately, the chicken-and-egg problem of causation remains: do organizations and success foster trust through habits of cooperation and personal affirmation, or are people who are already more trusting for whatever reason the ones who tend to join voluntary organizations and be more satisfied with their lives? Offe points out that rich and powerful people can often afford to trust more, since they are better equipped to bear the risk of defection.

Social trust taken by itself is not useful in predicting how free or democratic a society is. However, it may be a prerequisite of a functioning democracy, and it may be useful when combined with other indicators. Should countries with many racial, religious, and ethnic cleavages resign themselves to low levels of trust, or can trust be somehow engineered? The European Union has been pointed to as an institution that might work to increase social trust between people of all member states through the gradual mixing and deals being struck between various social categories. There is, of course, no data to back up this claim, and this is a problem that plagues the study of social trust. Although many scholars are in agreement that social trust correlates to a variety of indicators that are important to democracy, the fact that they are almost without exception basing their studies on a single question from the World Values Survey might be the primary reason for this consensus. What is needed is a more specific measure of generalized trust. Even if such a measure were developed today, it would be many years before any time-series analysis of trust within or across countries could be undertaken, which is one reason why the current flawed question has not been changed. But even an accurate census of worldwide social trust at the present time would greatly enhance our understanding of this concept and its implications. Having concluded that social trust is a public good (it is non-excludable, non-rivalrous, and does not result in direct individual profit but does benefit society as a whole) that should be maximized, there are various strategies, at both macro and micro levels, for increasing social trust.

Regional Aspirations

One problem with Putnam’s theory of social capital is that it condemns societies with cultural or political histories antithetical to a trusting environment to resigning themselves to a continued deficit of trust; it is a deterministic approach that tells societies that it will be very difficult for them to overcome a scarcity of social capital. His and many other explanations of the origins of trust reduce people to “dupes” who are trapped by the culture in which they happen to live. This is a false oversimplification, and with knowledge of what “works” and what does not when it comes to creating a trusting environment, we can develop strategies at multiple levels that might plausibly increase this trust, albeit gradually. Certainly, entrenched cultural norms and traditions (such as suspicion of minorities) have an influence on trust and cannot be changed by decree. Likewise, efforts to make a country more trusting in the midst of a divisive civil war or ethnic conflict are unlikely to meet success. A less flawed measurement tool might also help us understand the differences in levels of trust across states. But using the available research, what suggestions can be made to societies that recognize the immense potential of a trusting society, and want to maximize this good?

The more cosmopolitan a person is, the more likely it is that he or she will trust others. The population of the United States is divided by considerable cleavages but maintains a moderate (although declining) level of trust due to impressive cultural diffusion. Other similarly divided countries have only nominal levels of social trust. Cosmopolitan values include open communication between groups, strong communities headed by progressive leaders who insist on change, rejecting stagnancy or a return to the past in favor of the creation of a new future (such leaders, for this reason, are often unpopular), and the involvement of the whole community in addressing societal problems. This is not to say that all groups must assimilate into a mass culture; it means that everyone in a society should reach a mutual understanding based on a belief in “common humanity” which creates a trusting environment. Fostering a cosmopolitan society can begin with leaders who encourage participation, involvement, and communication between groups, but it will ultimately depend on citizens willing to create commonalities with people from other communities. These leaders can, but need not, be political.