Abstract
Trust is a central element of any well-functioning democracy, and the fact that it is widely reported to be on the wane is a worrisome phenomenon of contemporary politics. It is therefore critical that political and social philosophers focus on efforts by which to rebuild trust relations. I argue that a shared public culture is up to the task of trust-building, for three reasons. First, a shared public culture gives citizens an insight into the motivations that inspire fellow citizens to action. Second, a shared public culture serves to generate both positive and negative sanctions, an understanding of which helps citizens to predict how their fellow citizens will behave. Third, a shared public culture generates a sense that we belong together. There are, of course, many communities that can reasonably be interpreted as having a shared public culture, even though they are characterized by low levels of trust. This observation leads me to suggest two features that a shared public culture must have in order to facilitate the emergence of trust relations: citizens must be willing to cooperate and they must be willing to submit to common institutions that will be responsible for coordinating this large-scale cooperation. If these conditions are fulfilled, a shared public culture will serve as a reliable source of trust relations.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
This is clearly an inadequate sketch of an argument that needs to be elaborated. I offer this elaboration in ‘Trust your compatriots, but count your change’, Political Studies (Lenard, P. forthcoming, 2007).
Not all scholars of trust express anxiety about the decline, however. In his ‘Do we want trust in government?’, Russell Hardin explains why it is not yet worth worrying about the decline (Hardin, 1999, 39–40).
A further worry, which I will only mention here, is that Abizadeh appears to be interpreting Miller's use of the term ‘public culture’ as a synonym for ‘culture’. But, Miller is clear that a public culture is distinct from the conventional interpretation of culture that Abizadeh seems to be assuming, here.
As an anonymous reviewer observed, this example is odd given that by and large Abizadeh's arguments are placed in democratic settings, even though Iran is not a democracy.
I say ‘continued’ suspicion of others because communist regimes are well known to have created conditions under which most citizens came to be suspicious, and generally distrustful, of others: Lovell writes, ‘even the deep trust we might expect in close personal relations was put at risk by the extent of secret police surveillance’ (Lovell, 2001, 33). It may be, moreover, that as these countries develop a firmer commitment to democratic institutions, the levels of trust will rise. As an anonymous reviewer points out, there is plenty of evidence that high levels of trust correlates well with well-functioning democracies. The reviewer wonders whether trust is a consequence of democracy; my argument, however, is that trust is what sustains a healthy democracy over time.
The claim is not, to be clear, that a shared public culture is the sole source of trust relations; rather, the claim is that a shared public culture is a good one on which to focus since it is a reliable source of trust, so long as it contains the features described here. As an anonymous reviewer suggested, the claim is that a commitment to shared public culture will have the necessary polity-wide effects I am aiming for.
These studies further indicate that the attribution of positive motives is correlated more strongly with imputations of trustworthiness than is either of competence or evidence of past good decisions.
The argument about the ways in which communities sanction is not limited, as an anonymous reviewer observed, to large-scale communities of the kind at issue in this essay.
Of course, certain sanctions are imposed by community law, and so are enforced more rigorously; I mean, however, to signal the informal sanctions at work, here.
This study, and variations on it that come to comparable conclusions, is reported in de Cremer and van Vugt, ‘Social identification effects in social dilemmas: a transformation of motives’, pp. 871–893. For a review of social dilemma experiments, see M.B. Brewer and S.K. Schneider's ‘Social identity and social dilemmas: a double-edged sword’.
Just to be clear, my claim is not that trust does not have a positive effect on cooperation. Not only is it well known that high trusters are more willing than low trusters to cooperate, the perceived risks associated with cooperation are evidently mitigated when trust exists. The claim here is only that cooperation does not require trust. For ample evidence that high trusters are more likely to cooperate, see for example, the review of these studies in Cook and Cooper, ‘Experimental Studies of Cooperation, Trust, and Social Exchange’.
References
Abizadeh, A. (2002) ‘Does liberal democracy presuppose a cultural nation?’ American Political Science Review 96: 495–509.
Alesina, A. and La Ferrara, E. (2000) ‘Who trusts others?’, Center for Economic Policy Research Working Paper. http://www.cepr.org.
Andrain, C.F. and Smith, J.T. (2006) ‘Political Democracy, Trust and Social Justice, Hanover: Northeastern University Press, 231pp.
Baier, A. (1995) ‘Moral Prejudices, Cambridge, MA: 384pp.
Brewer, M.B. and Schneider, S.K. (1990) ‘Social Identity and Social Dilemmas: A Double-edged Sword’, in D. Abrams and M.A. Hogg (eds.) Social Identity Theory: Constructive and Critical Advances, New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf, pp. 169–184.
Briscoe, S. (2005) ‘Is the public able to trust the officials?’ Financial Times (London), 26 March.
Coleman, J. (1990) Foundations of Social Theory, Cambridge. MA: Harvard University Press.
Cook, K.S. and Cooper, R.M. (2003) ‘Experimental Studies of Cooperation, Trust and Social Exchange’, in E. Ostrom and J. Walker (eds.) Trust and Reciprocity, New York: Russell Sage Foundation, pp. 209–244.
de Cremer, D. and van Vugt, M. (1999) ‘Social identification effects in social dilemmas: a transformation of motives’, European Journal of Social Psychology 29: 871–893.
Gambetta, D. (ed.) (1988) Trust: Making and Breaking Cooperative Relations, Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Hardin, R. (1999) ‘Do We Want Trust in Government?’, in M. Warren (ed.) Democracy and Trust, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 22–41.
Henrich, J. et al. (2001) ‘Economic man in cross-cultural perspective: behavioral experiments in fifteen small-scale societies’ Working Paper # 01-11-063, Santa Fe Institute. http://www.santafe.edu/sfi/publications/Working-Papers/01-11-063.pdf.
Inglehart, R. (1999) ‘Trust, Well-being and Democracy’, in M. Warren (ed.) Democracy and Trust, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 88–120.
Lenard, P. (2006) ‘Belonging, Political Participation and Ethno-cultural Minorities’, Canadian Foreign Policy 12: 53–68.
Lenard, P. (2007) ‘Trust your compatriots, but count your change’, Political Studies (forthcoming).
Lovell, D.W. (2001) ‘Trust and the politics of postcommunism’, Communist and Post-Communist Studies 34: 27–38.
Luhmann, N. (1982) Trust and Power, Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, 228pp.
Macedo, S. (1999) Distrust and Diversity: Civic Education in a Multicultural Democracy, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 343pp.
Mackie, G. (2001) ‘Patterns of Social Trust in Western Europe and Their Genesis’, in K. Cook (ed.) Trust in Society, New York: Russell Sage, pp. 245–282.
Macwhirter, I. (2005) ‘It's a sad day for democracy when you cannot trust the PM’, The Herald (Glasgow), 2 March.
Mason, A. (2000) Community, Solidarity and Belonging, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 254pp.
Mill, J.S. (1991) ‘On representative government’, in J. Gray (ed.) On Liberty and Other Essays, Oxford: Oxford University Press, (originally published 1861).
Miller, D. (1995) On Nationality, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 224pp.
Moore, M. (2001) The Ethics of Nationalism, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 272pp.
Nye, J. (ed.) (1997a) Why People Don’t Trust Government, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 352pp.
Nye, J. (1997b) ‘In government we don’t trust’, Foreign Policy 108: 99–111.
Offe, C. (1999) ‘How can We Trust Our Fellow Citizens?’, in M. Warren (ed.) Democracy and Trust, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 42–87.
Offerman, T., Sonnemans, J. and Schram, A. (1996) ‘Value orientations, expectations and voluntary contributions in public goods’, The Economic Journal 106: 817–845.
Tyler, T. and Degoey, P. (1996) ‘Trust in Organizational Authorities: The Influence of Motive Attributes on Willingness to Accept Decisions’, in R.M. Kramer and T.R. Tyler (eds.) Trust in Organizations, London: Sage Publications, pp. 331–355.
Uslaner, E. (1999) ‘Democracy and Social Capital’, in M. Warren (ed.) Democracy and Trust, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 121–150.
Uslaner, E. (2002) The Moral Foundations of Trust, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 312pp.
Uslaner, E. (2003) ‘Trust, Democracy and Governance: Can Government Policies Influence Generalized Trust?’, in M. Hooghe and D. Stolle (eds.) Generating Social Capital, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 171–190.
Warren, M. (1999) ‘Democratic Theory and Trust’, in M. Warren (ed.) Democracy and Trust, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 310–345.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank David Miller. Zofia Stemplowska, and Jacob J. Krich, Avia Pasternak, the members of the Nuffield Political Theory Workshop, as well as the two anonymous reviewers for this journal for helpful comments on earlier versions of this essay.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Lenard, P. Shared Public Culture: A Reliable Source of Trust. Contemp Polit Theory 6, 385–404 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.cpt.9300306
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.cpt.9300306