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This article was downloaded by: [University of Strathclyde]On: 08 October 2014, At: 02:00Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH,UK
West European PoliticsPublication details, including instructions for authorsand subscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/fwep20
Why Do We Trust Strangers?Revising the InstitutionalApproach to Generalised TrustCreationViktoria KainaPublished online: 10 Mar 2011.
To cite this article: Viktoria Kaina (2011) Why Do We Trust Strangers? Revising theInstitutional Approach to Generalised Trust Creation, West European Politics, 34:2,282-295, DOI: 10.1080/01402382.2011.546573
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Why Do We Trust Strangers?Revising the Institutional Approachto Generalised Trust Creation
VIKTORIA KAINA
The institutional approach to generalised trust creation is based on the assumption thatonly institutions with certain features give people reason to trust strangers. This articleoffers a revised version of this approach by arguing that there is an indirect rather thana direct link between the properties of institutions and trust among strangers. Referringto a neo-institutional idea of institutions, it is suggested that the potential of institutionsfor enabling people to trust strangers rests on institutions’ power to structure individualaction. The endurance and efficacy of institutions rather than their normative principlesgive us significant clues that our anonymous fellow citizens think about institutions aswe do and accordingly feel committed to the rules of action. This, in turn, provides goodreasons to believe that most of them will behave in an ‘appropriate’ manner so that wecan trust them even if they are strangers.
Many scholars believe that trust plays an important role in social andpolitical life. James Coleman (1988) described trust as a transfer of controlof actions, resources and events to others (Schneeberger 1982: 302).Although there is a large amount of interdisciplinary literature on trust,the concept remains fuzzy (Levi and Stoker 2000; Hardin 2006). Most of thevarious conceptions and explications at least agree on the functionalconnotation of trust (Schmalz-Bruns 2002: 16). According to the prominentproposition by Niklas Luhmann (1979, 1989), for example, trust is anindispensable social resource in modern societies because it helps to reducesocial complexity and coordinate collective action. Hence, trust becomes acentral mechanism for absorbing uncertainties and contingencies resultingfrom the future’s openness in social interactions (Misztal 1996: 18;Sztompka 1999: 21ff). Generalised trust, in particular, is said to be animportant means to overcome the challenges of collective problem-solvingin large and highly differentiated societies, where face-to-face situations arestill even less common (e.g. Putnam 1993, 2000; Rothstein 2005). As aspecific form of trust, generalised trust refers to trust in strangers. Strangers
Correspondence Address: [email protected]
West European Politics,Vol. 34, No. 2, 282–295, March 2011
ISSN 0140-2382 Print/1743-9655 Online ª 2011 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/01402382.2011.546573
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are anonymous others, namely people we do not know personally. Trust instrangers is a kind of ‘thin trust’ (Putnam 2000: 136) which is related to so-called ‘weak ties’ (Granovetter 1973) between people who meet rathersporadically on more or less casual occasions.
In large-scale modern societies, which are based on the division of labourand far-reaching anonymity, generalised trust matters inasmuch as it widensthe scope of trust to people we do not know personally. Indeed, there arecountless situations in which we trust strangers by transferring control ofactions, resources and events to them. We do so, for example, when we‘place [our] life in the hands of airline pilots’ (Newton 2008: 246), commitour money to a bank or entrust our children’s education to schools anduniversities. Against this background, generalised trust is supposed to havevarious beneficial impacts on the efficiency of modern societies in generaland democracies in particular. Students of generalised trust argue, forexample, that trust in strangers facilitates cooperation and integration,allows effective problem-solving, encourages tolerance and fosters people’swillingness to accept otherness (Newton 1997: 579; Putnam 2000: 136; Offe1999; Uslaner 1999, 2008; Gabriel et al. 2002: 56; Stolle 2002: 399; Freitag2003: 937: Hooghe and Stolle 2003: 2, 4; Freitag and Buhlmann 2005;Rothstein 2005).
Considering the valuable repercussions of generalised trust, manyscholars deal with the crucial question of how trust in strangers can begenerated. Put differently, if generalised trust has a positive bearing on thefunctioning of modern societies, then it is important to learn more about themechanisms of transforming trust in people we are close to into trust instrangers. To date, however, the research on generalised trust has not beenvery successful in providing evidence for a causal mechanism of generalisingand transferring trust in familiar persons towards unknown people (Uslaner2002: 40, 115–59, 2008: 105–8; Stolle and Hooghe 2003: 234; Rothstein andStolle 2008: 276–7). It is still an open question, therefore, how and underwhat circumstances we can trust strangers (Offe 1999, 2001) – and why wedo so.
Nevertheless, there are several offers that seek to explain how trust inanonymous others is possible. One influential approach to generalised trustcreation highlights the power of institutions for facilitating trust in strangers(e.g. Offe 1999; Levi 2003; Hermann and Brewer 2004; Delhey and Newton2005; Freitag and Buhlmann 2005; Rothstein 2005; Rothstein and Stolle2008). The institutional approach to generalised trust creation is mainlybased on the assumption that only institutions with certain features – such asimpartiality, neutrality, equality before the law, or equality of opportunity –give people reason to trust strangers, provided that these ideals ‘are guidingthe operative procedures’ of the institutions (Rothstein and Stolle 2008: 283).Some evidence seems to confirm this claim by showing a correlation betweengeneralised trust and trust in the institutions of law and order (Rothstein2001, 2002; Freitag and Buhlmann 2005). While correlations do not say
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anything about a causal relationship, I do not want to question the empiricalevidence but rather the theoretical reasoning by authors of the institutionalapproach to generalised trust creation. Accordingly, the aforementionedempirical finding remains a puzzle since there is no compelling theoreticalargument why the attributes of certain institutions should give us reason totrust people we do not know personally.
The following offers a revised version of the institutional approach togeneralised trust creation by arguing that there is an indirect rather than adirect link between the properties of institutions and trust among strangers.This argument is based on two assumptions. Firstly, referring to a neo-institutional idea of institutions, I argue that the potential of institutions forenabling people to trust strangers rests on the institutions’ power tostructure individual action. Therefore, my first assumption is thatinstitutions both enable and motivate people to cooperate with anonymousothers, and that repeated successful cooperation will bring about trust instrangers. Secondly, whether institutions do effectively function in this wayis contingent upon (1) institutions’ standing and stability and (2)institutions’ efficacy. The main difference between this proposition and theinstitutional approach to generalised trust creation, then, is the role of theinstitutions’ properties in terms of normative ideals. I agree that certainvalues define the normative idea of institutions. However, I suggest thatthese values affect both the stability and the efficacy of institutions.Consequently, my second assumption is that the endurance and efficacy ofinstitutions rather than their normative principles give us significant cluesthat our anonymous fellow citizens think about the institutions as we do andfeel committed to the rules of action for this reason. This, in turn, providesgood reasons to believe that most of our fellow citizens will behave in an‘appropriate’ manner so that we can trust them even if they are strangersfor us.
The article consists of three further parts. First, I elucidate the notion ofinstitutions that I work with. By doing so, I also show to what extent theeffective functioning of institutions depends on their stability and enduranceas well as their efficacy. The following section explains the revised version ofthe institutional approach to generalised trust creation in more detail. Thefinal section briefly summarises the main arguments.
Institutions as Rules of Action
Like many other concepts in the social sciences, the term institution lacks astandard definition that is generally accepted. The neo-institutional‘counter-revolution’ of the 1980s has rediscovered institutions as powerfuldrivers of human action (March and Olsen 1984). However, the reclaimedrelevance of institutions in sociology and political science has resulted inseveral theoretical branches. A current publication (Peters 2005: 18) countsno less than six versions of neo-institutionalism that can be found in
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political science (e.g. Koelble 1995; Hall and Taylor 1996; Immergut 1998;Kaiser 1997; Peters 1999, 2005). Nevertheless, there is a key meaning ofinstitutions which can be regarded as the least common denominator. Manyscholars would accordingly agree that institutions describe rules whichcreate regular patterns of interaction and constitute a social order byactuating individual action in a certain way (Fuchs 1997: 256). In thiscontext, we can distinguish two kinds of institutions. First, there are formalinstitutions such as those that are localised in both the constitution andinstitutional setting of a country, for example, parliaments, governments,courts and political parties, but also federalism and the rule of law (Fuchs1997: 256; Peters 1999: 18; Scharpf 2000: 77; see also Levi 1990; Keck 1991;Weaver and Rockman 1993; Mayntz and Scharpf 1995). Second, there arealso informal rules, customs and routines which influence individual andcollective action (Fuchs 1997: 256; Peters 1999: 18; Scharpf 2000: 77; Kaiser2001: 256). I base my following arguments on the neo-institutional idea ofinstitutions by interpreting them as rules of action. These rules serve asstructural incentives for social and political action in that they both facilitateand constrain individual action in a certain manner (Kaiser 1997, 2001;Rothstein 2005: 41).
The notion of institutions as rules of action is in line with the argumentthat institutions fulfil several important functions in human societies. Inmany cases, institutions emerge without explicit planning but as aconsequence of humans’ efforts to solve recurrent problems of everydaylife (Esser 2000: 14; Berger and Luckmann 2004). At first, people createloose arrangements when they attempt to coordinate their action for day-to-day problem-solving. By and by, these arrangements turn out to beinstitutions in terms of socially binding rules of action which are anchored inthe people’s expectations (Esser 2000: 7). This kind of institution-building isdriven by the fact that people adapt to customary methods of problem-solving when they consistently refer to them in order to repeat successfulprocedures (Esser 2000: 38). The process of ‘habitualization’ (Berger andLuckmann 2004: 56) also lessens the costs of social action when it comes tofinding solutions for day-to-day problems (Esser 2001: 347).
Against this background, institutions serve their purpose when theyrelieve people from uncertainty (orientation function) and assure coopera-tion and social order (ordering function) in that they make social actionmore predictable (Mayntz and Scharpf 1995: 47; Peters 1999: 18; Esser 2000:14, 15; Scharpf 2000: 80–81; Kaiser 2001: 259; Lessenich 2003: 39–40; Bergerand Luckmann, 2004: 57). Since institutions establish points of referenceand help to anticipate the behaviour of other individuals, they make boththe division of labour and cooperation easier. However, institutions alsohave to endow human action with sense (function of sense-making) in orderto fulfil their orientation and ordering function (Esser 2000: 34). The sense-making function of institutions is successful inasmuch as the rule-drivenaction induces comprehension and commitment. Consequently, people not
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only know what it is about, but also feel morally and emotionally bound tothe rule, since they have internalised the norms and values which areconnected with it (Fuchs 1997: 257; Esser 2000: 35). Thus, institutions alsodefine benchmarks for appropriate behaviour, since they establish arelationship between norms and values on the one hand and individualaction on the other (Lepsius 1995: 394; Jachtenfuchs and Kohler-Koch2004: 81; Bach 2008: 41). Whether and to what extent institutions fulfil thesefunctions depends on two factors, however: first, institutions’ stability andendurance, and second, institutions’ efficacy.
To begin with the first condition, institutions gain firmness and stability inthat they enforce their rules. The rule enforcement is successful when theinstitutions reliably preclude any other alternative to those opportunities ofaction that are prescribed by the institution’s rules (Esser 2000: 37). In otherwords, the robustness of institutions is preconditioned by our confidencethat others adhere to the rules as well (Kaiser 2001: 259). For this reason,institutions not only provide opportunities for action but also constraintsand restrictions. There are two feasibilities to enforcing institutional rules.On the one hand, it is possible to impose a sanction on anyone who infringesthe rules. On the other hand, it is possible to enforce institutional rules bylegitimacy, which is based on the people’s belief that the rules are right andproper (Esser 2000: 9: Kaiser 2001: 277). However, people’s convictions oflegitimacy are always bound to their interests and value orientations. Thisfact results in two important consequences.
First, the more the institutional rules of behaviour are legitimised bygenerally accepted values which are also internalised by the actors who referto them, the more institutions may develop high stability (Fuchs 1997: 257;Esser 2000: 329; Lessenich 2003: 41). However, values and rules do notalways need to be in accordance. From this follows, second, that noteveryone will feel obliged by the rules at all times because not all people needto consider an institution as legitimate at any one time. For this reason,institutions are always incomplete as well as more or less contested (Offe1999: 66). This problem becomes particularly virulent when the rules ofaction are ‘externalised’ by affecting people who did not take part inconstructing these rules – for example, new generations or strangers (Bergerand Luckmann 2004: 63, 66, 99–100; Esser 2000: 324). As a consequence ofthis ‘externalisation’ of the rules of action, institutions need some kind ofjustification, since their character of certitude cannot be perpetuated eitherby memories or habitualisation (Berger and Luckmann 2004: 100). It istherefore necessary to systematically familiarise those people with institu-tional sense who did not play a role in creating the rules of action, forexample through education (Berger and Luckmann 2004: 74).
As for the second condition, institutions can only fulfil their functions ifthey are efficacious. Institutions unfold efficacy by the cultural and symbolicmediation of institutional rules into the people’s beliefs and attitudes(symbol function) (Esser 2000: 12). In order to provoke this process of
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cultural symbolisation, people formulate normative key ideas of institutions(Lepsius 1995: 395). These ideas represent the people’s fundamentalconception of the way of living together in a community (Kaiser 2001:259; Lessenich 2003: 43). Certainly, the normative key ideas of institutionsare always contentious since they are found in societal power struggles.Nevertheless, these ideas reflect significant value orientations and emble-matise a certain view of how a (social or political) order should be (Kaiser2001: 276; Lessenich 2003: 45).
Consequently, institutions provide humans with models of orientationwhich are generated by distinctive signs and symbols (Esser 2000: 11–12).Since symbols are a source of sense, they bring about reactions among thepeople who know the symbols’ meaning – for example, in terms ofcognitions or emotional responses (Esser 2000: 324–5). This process isevoked when and because symbols connect situations with memories which,in turn, sediment as ‘solidified experiences’ in the human consciousness(Berger and Luckmann 2004: 72). Using a system of signs, a part of thesememories is ‘socially objectified’ (Berger and Luckmann 2004: 72): sharedmemories are therefore the fundament for a body of common knowledgewhich, in turn, justifies the objective validity of rules (Esser 2000: 325). Thesuccessful process of the institutions’ collective symbolisation also helps toexplain three observations: first, it is difficult to modify institutions; second,institutional change is normally a long-term process; and third, the course ofinstitutional alteration is in many cases path-dependent, since it remainslinked with the primal historical path of the institutions’ genesis (e.g.Scharpf 2000: 82; Kaiser 2001: 274; Pierson 2004).
Once created, institutions tend to endure, since they retain ‘recipes’ foraction (Berger and Luckmann 2004: 70). We can thus make twosuppositions. First, the less controversial the rules of action are, the higherthe stability as well as the greater the efficacy of institutions is – and viceversa. Second, the more the ‘recipes of action’ are accepted, the betterinstitutions can fulfil their important functions in human societies byproviding models of orientation and social order, sources of sense-makingas well as points of reference for predicting others’ behaviour in socialinteractions. As I will show in the next section, these two suppositions areimportant in order to justify the power of institutions for enabling people totrust strangers.
No Trust without Clues
The institutional approach of generalised trust creation has evolved incompetition with the propositions of Robert Putnam (1993, 1995a, 1995b,2000). His work stands for a society-related approach to generalised trustcreation which is entrenched in his concept of social capital (Gabriel et al.2002: 27; Hooghe and Stolle 2003: 2). According to Putnam’s research,generalised trust is promoted by a broad network of voluntary associations,
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free time organisations, clubs, citizen’s initiatives and neighbourhoodfacilities. In contrast, the institutional approach to generalised trust creationargues that a society’s level of trust in strangers is influenced by thecountry’s institutional arrangement. In particular, the effective and fairimplementation of institutions in accordance with the rule of law forms aclimate of trust, since a misuse of trust is reliably punished (e.g. Offe 2001;Rothstein 2000, 2001, 2002, 2005; Levi 2003; Stolle and Hooghe 2003;Freitag and Buhlmann 2005; Rothstein and Stolle 2008). That is, thoseinstitutions which guarantee the fair and effective punishment of trustbreaches make it easier for people to trust other persons they do not knowpersonally. However, these institutions may only act in this way if theyafford trust in themselves in order to provide a credible explanation for theother’s ‘good’ behaviour (Herrmann and Brewer 2004: 11).
In his analysis on social capital in Sweden, Bo Rothstein (2000, 2001,2002, 2005: 111) actually found a positive correlation between people’s trustin their fellow citizens on the one hand and people’s trust in the institutionsof law and order on the other. The more a person trusts courts and thepolice, the more he or she also trusts other people – and vice versa.However, Rothstein himself qualifies his finding by pointing to twoobservations. First, the correlations he found are rather weak (Rothstein2001: 170–71, 2005: 111), ‘implying that there is a significant number ofpeople for which this does not hold’ (Rothstein 2002: 321). Second, the factthat these correlations do exist ‘does not say anything about how the causalmechanism operates or if there is a causal mechanism at work at all’(Rothstein 2002: 321). Nevertheless, based on a multilevel analysis, MarkusFreitag and Marc Buhlmann (2005) have also shown that there obviously isa link between generalised trust and institutional trust in the legal system. Inaddition, they have highlighted that an impartial judiciary fortifies people’sconfidence in their country’s legal system which, in turn, has a positivebearing on people’s willingness to trust strangers.
Notwithstanding the evidence, I want to challenge the plausibility of thearguments that are employed to explain this finding. Rothstein (2002: 322)seeks to explain this finding by arguing that institutions of law and orderhave the important task of detecting and punishing people who are ‘traitors’(see also Rothstein 2005: 112). ‘Traitors’ are persons who, for example,break contracts, steal, murder, and ‘do other such noncooperative things andtherefore should not be trusted’ (Rothstein 2002: 322, emphasis added).Strictly speaking, Rothstein expresses an expectation towards strangers sothat we can trust them, namely that they will behave cooperatively.Consequently, the question arises: what do the law and order institutionsreally punish – an abuse of trust or non-cooperative behaviour?
Rothstein (2002: 322) subsequently argues:
Thus, if you think that these institutions do what they are supposed todo in a fair and effective manner, then you also have reason to believe
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that the chance people have of getting away with such treacherousbehaviour is small. If so, you will believe that people will have verygood reason to refrain from acting in a treacherous manner, and youwill therefore believe that most people can be trusted.
Moreover, Rothstein and Stolle (2008: 287) have emphasised elsewhere thatit is ‘the combination of efficiency and fairness of order institutions’ thatmakes trust in strangers possible (see also Rothstein 2005: 112).
Eric Uslaner (2002: 45; 2003: 174; 2008: 113) has called the logic of thistrain of thought into question by arguing that coercion will certainlystrengthen the degree of legality in terms of increasing compliance with thelaw. However, obeying the law because we fear sanctions does not make usmore trusting. In other words, if certain institutions ensure that peoplecomply with the law, these institutions do not automatically create trustamong strangers (Uslaner 2003: 175).
I agree with Uslaner in that I call into question whether there is a directlink between the assets of institutions and trust among strangers. Never-theless, I suggest that institutions acting in accordance with the rule of lawexert an indirect influence on our willingness to trust anonymous others. Myfirst assumption accordingly indicates that institutions which are appointedto sanction the violation of rules in an effective and fair manner facilitatecooperation among people by minimising the risks of the transfer of controlto others. Cooperation, in turn, may positively affect generalised trust. This ismainly the case when our experiences do not only prove that successfulcooperation with strangers is possible but also that non-cooperativebehaviour will be punished. Thus, if we assume that most people have goodreasons to refrain from ‘treacherous’ action, we do not yet need to assumethat most people can be trusted. However, we can presume with good reasonthat most people will act in a cooperative manner. That is, institutions actingin accordance with the rule of law sanction non-cooperative behaviour ratherthan betrayals of trust. In that way, these institutions nonetheless contributeto the building of a climate of trust in that they primarily protect the environsof cooperative action. They have an indirect impact on generalised trustbecause protecting the surroundings of cooperation may foster theemergence and stabilisation of trust in strangers. However, this does notneed to be the case, since cooperation does not necessarily rest on trust (e.g.Williams 1988). The latter might also explain why Rothstein (2001, 2002,2005) found only weak correlations between generalised trust and confidencein the institutions of law and order. These arguments do not contradict theempirical evidence that there may be a link between people’s trust in theirfellow citizens and their trust in the institutions of law and order. What Iargue, however, is that the observed relationship is a statistical artefact whichis caused by an underlying phenomenon: people’s cooperative behaviour.
Nevertheless, we need a theory to explain why our expectation that mostpeople will play by the rules allows for trust in strangers. I believe there is
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one implicit and preliminary explanation for this observation. Severalscholars of the institutional approach of generalised trust creation insert asupplemental precondition or auxiliary assumption into their lines ofargument by asserting as follows: if we see that institutions function inaccordance with certain normative features and if we furthermore believethat our fellow citizens think about these institutions in the same manner aswe do, then we can also trust people we do not know personally (Rothstein2000: 492–3; Freitag and Buhlmann 2005: 577). This argument raisesanother crucial question: what causes can make us believe that strangersthink about institutions in the same manner as we do? If we do not knowthem, we cannot be sure how strangers think about institutions. This leadsme to my second assumption. Due to our lack of information, we need atleast two important clues from which we can draw our belief that strangersthink about institutions as we do. The first clue is the stability andendurance of institutions and the second one is institutions’ efficacy throughthe symbolic mediation of their normative key ideas into the people’s beliefsand attitudes.
To begin with the first point, I come back to my arguments above.Accordingly, institutions only endure if they function. Functioninginstitutions – i.e. institutions which successfully enforce their rules of action– permit some courses of action while they reliably preclude others. Thesuccessful enforcement of rules makes us trust that other people also abideby these rules. There are two possibilities to secure the functioning ofinstitutions: by imposing sanctions on anyone who infringes the rules, or bybreeding legitimacy for the rules. One could object by pointing out that thethreat of sanctions does not necessarily prove that strangers think aboutinstitutions in the same manner as we do and play by the rules for thisreason. As a result, the stability of institutions is perhaps only a weakindicator – if one at all – that other people we do not know share our viewabout the action-guiding sense of an institution.
This plea, however, disregards the socialising effects of institutions. As wecan assume that strangers have been socialised in a similar or even the sameinstitutional environment as we have been, we have no guarantee but goodreasons to believe that most of them share our opinion regarding theseinstitutions. Certainly, we cannot always be aware of whether strangers havebeen socialised in a institutional setting comparable to ours. We can assume,though, that this is more probable the longer the institutions have existedand the less contentious they are. The latter is all the more important as thesuccess of socialising effects is influenced more by the prevalent approval ofrules of actions than the capacity of institutions to last. Nevertheless, thedegree to which institutions in large-scale societies are uncontroversial givesus a base for our belief that other people we do not know think about theseinstitutions as we do. It also has a bearing on both the functioning anddurability of the institutions. As I have argued above, institutions stabilise ifpeople accept them, since the rules of actions are consistent with the people’s
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convictions of legitimacy. Institutions which are legitimised by values with ahigh degree of commonality are particularly long-lasting. Precisely becauseinstitutions are always contested to some extent and do not oblige everyonein a given society (Offe 1999: 66, 2001: 275), both the steadiness andfunctioning of certain institutions is a backing for our belief that strangersthink about these institutions as we do. The reason is that both theendurance and the functioning of institutions indicate the non-controversialcharacter of the rules of action.
The second clue for our assumption that strangers think about certaininstitutions in the same manner as we do is the degree of efficacy of theseinstitutions. I have argued above that the normative key ideas of institutionsrepresent essential conceptions of the way of living together in a communityas well as basic views of how a social or political order should be.Accordingly, we can assume that others will approve the rules of action andfollow them only if the normative key ideas of institutions are successfullymediated into the convictions of these other people. However, we do notreally know whether this is really the case when it comes to strangers. Again,we are faced with the problem that we have only poor knowledge – or noknowledge at all – about people we do not know personally. We thereforeneed at least some information regarding the extent to which institutions arepresumed to be corruptible. We need this knowledge, since corruptinstitutions constantly allow for inappropriate behaviour so that, despitethe threat of sanctions, rule breaches are no exception in a society but ratherare ubiquitous.
I suggest that such institutions whose normative key ideas symbolisesignificant ideals are less vulnerable to corruption than other institutions.Therefore, if institutions rely on values of a high degree of generality, theytend to be not only legitimate and durable but also efficacious. Thisargument raises another important question: what substantial quality doinstitutions need in order to give reliable incentives for common action andinspire me with trust that anonymous others share my opinions on the rulesof action and feel obliged by them as I do (Offe 2001: 277; Freitag andBuhlmann 2005: 582)? Accordingly, in order to detect whether strangersthink similarly about institutions, it is not sufficient to ask what values theyshare. Furthermore, we have to give answers to the question of whichattributes institutions need in order to become predominant (Offe 2001: 278).Only hegemonic rules of the game, relying on prevalent values, maytransform strangers in ‘quasi-acquaintances’ because we share the samesocial territory with them (Offe 2001: 279).
Claus Offe (2001: 278) has argued that institutions’ moral and pragmaticplausibility makes the rules of action predominant. Furthermore, the rulesof action have to conform to the values of truth and fairness in order tobecome hegemonic (Offe 2001: 280–81). The latter claim, however, isempirically unsecured, at least for the time being. Moreover, we need moreknowledge about whether other values and principles, such as equality,
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participation or obedience to God, may also satisfy people’s claim ofplausibility. Rothstein and Stolle (2008: 283), for example, namedimpartiality, equality before the law, respect for human rights, equality ofopportunity and efficiency; Freitag and Buhlmann (2005: 577) added,amongst others, universality and power-sharing. It is still an open question,therefore, how some institutions become socially predominant and why theyare more sacrosanct than other institutions. It is therefore also a question ofevidence rather than a problem of logical inference, which assets make someinstitutions less contested than others so that they give us good reasons totrust our anonymous fellow citizens.
Conclusion
In large-scale modern societies, trust in strangers is said to be an importantmeans to overcome many problems of collective problem-solving. Indeed,we willingly transfer the control of actions, resources and events to personswe do not know personally on countless occasions. For the time being,however, we do not know much about the causal mechanisms ofgeneralising and transferring trust in familiar persons to anonymous others.Thus, the crucial question is: why do we trust strangers?
The institutional approach to generalised trust creation provides only oneanswer to this question by highlighting the relevance of institutions. Themain representatives of this approach argue that only institutions withcertain features in terms of normative ideals give people reason to truststrangers, provided that these ideals ‘are guiding the operative procedures’of the institutions (Rothstein and Stolle 2008: 283). In particular, they nameimpartiality, neutrality, equality before the law, equality of opportunity,universalism and power-sharing (Freitag and Buhlmann 2005: 577;Rothstein and Stolle 2008: 283). However, I see a theoretical void when itcomes to convincingly explaining why the attributes of the institutionsshould have such an effect. This explanation deficit is accompanied byanother problem. If we seek to normatively justify why some ideals are morequalified to make trust in strangers possible than other principles, we alsohave to reveal the standards of reference. It is therefore plausible to assumethat there are different normative ideals in different societies in order tojustify the key idea of given institutions. Consequently, we cannot take forgranted that institutional key ideas which rely upon typical ideals of liberaldemocracies – such as the rule of law or the equality of opportunity – carry asimilar weight in people’s willingness to trust anonymous others in countriesof another regime type.
Nevertheless, I agree that both institutions and normative values play animportant role for trust in strangers. As opposed to the original institutionalapproach to generalised trust creation, I see an indirect rather than a directlink between the properties of institutions in terms of normative principlesand trust in strangers. Defining institutions as rules of action, I believe that
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trust in other people we do not know is possible inasmuch as institutionsallow for some courses of action while reliably precluding others. So, we donot trust anonymous others since the institutions we are involved withmirror certain ideals. These ideals do not serve very much if we do notknow whether strangers also believe in these ideals. We trust strangersbecause we have clues that strangers think about institutions as we do andtherefore feel committed to the rules of action as we do. This, in turn,provides good reasons to believe that most of them will behave in an‘appropriate’ manner, so that we can trust them even if we do not knowthem personally. We derive these clues from the endurance and efficacy ofinstitutions. Both aspects are affected by significant values in that certainideals make some institutions less contested than others. However, it ismore an empirical than a theoretical question, which normative idealsprovide institutions of a given society with stability and efficacy. Thequestion of why institutions make trust among strangers possible thereforeneeds further research in order to avoid fallacies and provide a good guidefor systematic empirical research.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank two anonymous reviewers for their helpful suggestionson an earlier version of this article.
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