Institutional Foundations of Trust: Sociolegal Perspectives/Bases institucionais da confiança: perspectivas sociojurídicas.
| Autor | de Castro Cunha Filho, Marcelo |
Introduction (1)
Trust is commonly portrayed as an essential ingredient for social organizations to thrive (BECKERT, 2006; CASSON; GIUSTA, 2006; BACHMANN, 2006). Trust is considered, for example, a fundamental element for the maintenance and development of traditional organizations such as the family, the marriage, and the friendship circles (HONNETH, 2004). Trust is also seen as an essential element for the development of companies, as well as for the development and growth of markets in general (BECKERT, 2006; GRANOVETTER, 1985). Trust is also depicted as an indispensable element for the social and economic development of whole countries (PUTNAM, 2000; FUKUYAMA, 1996; KHODYAKOV, 2007). Both trust in government and in public institutions, as well as trust between citizens, are conceived of as essential requirements for the successful implementation of public policies, for the improvement of the economic performance of a country, and even for the improvement of quality of life in global terms (PUTNAM, 2000; FUKUYAMA, 1996; KHODYAKOV, 2007).
Despite the high level of consensus regarding the positive effects of trust, the hypothesis that trust could be artificially produced by imposing standards of behavior, procedures and competencies remains controversial in the literature. For one strand of the literature, the imposition of the duty to trust, whether by law, contracts or any other cognitive constraint, means nothing more than the verification of total distrust either between individuals or between individuals and organizations (GAMBETTA, 1988; DASGUPTA, 1988). Institutions such as the law would not be able in this sense to provide trust, but rather to create mechanisms to deal with its absence (GAMBETTA, 1988; DASGUPTA, 1988). On the other hand, another strand of the literature explains that institutions such as the law, contracts, governments etc. would be able to provide, or partially provide, trust between individuals and between individuals and organizations (LEVI, 1998; LUHMANN, 1996; ZUCKER, 1986).
The ways in which institutions - and the law more specifically - could function as mediators of trust are, according to this second strand of the literature, described by different authors from the most diverse fields of knowledge. Due to the variety of perspectives on this subject-matter, the study of trust does not find adequate systematization in the literature. Taking that into account, this article addresses the following research questions: first, how can trust be theoretically and empirically approached considering the multitude of methodological assumptions emerging from the economics, social and legal sciences? Second, how can institutions - including the law - artificially produce trust between people and between people and organizations through the imposition of standards of behavior, procedures and competencies? By reviewing and systematizing literature on trust and its relations with institutions, this paper aims to provide a scientific contribution to the literature on the subject-matter, which has long been studied by social sciences, but completely ignored by legal science.
This article is divided into three more sections. In the next section, I will discuss the concept of trust, its origins and how it can be approached from different perspectives taking into account different methodological assumptions. Taking into account the similarities found among the different approaches used to investigate empirical manifestations of trust between individuals and between individuals and organizations, I will systematize the results into three categories. The categories have been called: "calculative trust", "institutional trust" and "active trust". Each category explains the manifestations of trust in everyday life in different ways. They also explain how institutions in general, including the law, function as mechanisms to reinforce or weaken the decision to trust. Finally, I will present a brief conclusion and point to new roads in theoretical and empirical research agendas on trust.
1 - What is trust? An ongoing debate.
Traditionally, trust is characterized as an overall expectation that someone or a group of people will behave in a certain way in order to produce a specific future event. More recent definitions of the concept, however, have given it a broader scope and conceived that the object upon which trust can rest can be represented not only by a person or a group of persons, but also by an abstract system, such as an institution. According to Guido Mollering (2006, p. 356), for example, trust can be characterized as a reflexive process of maintaining a state of favorable expectations in relation to the actions and intentions of more or less specific others. By more or less others specific the author includes people, groups of people, organizations and institutions. In the same vein, Jorg Sydow (2006), Anthony Giddens (1991), Niklas Luhmann (1979), Dmitry Khdyakov (2007), Reinhard Bachmann and Andrew Inkpen (2011) stand among many others for whom trust has generic reach and does not discriminate against the entrusted object.
Whether it relies on a person or an institution, trust always leads to a tripartite relationship (ROBBINS, 2016; LEVI, 1998; HARDIN, 1996; FURLONG, 1996). On the one hand, there is one who trusts (trustor) and, on the other hand, that one being trusted (trustee). As a link between the two, there is the expectation that a future event will happen, either through the action of the one in whom one trusts or, then, through the entrusted institution. One might suppose that hypothetical agent A trusts wife (B) that B maintains fidelity over the course of time. It is also possible that the same hypothetical agent A relies on hypothetical company C for C to fix the defect of the product purchased. In one case as in the other, trust depends on a series of factors to be concretized. It depends on a number of psychological and social issues linked to the trustor (LEWIS; WEIGERT, 1985). It also depends on how the object trusted is presented to the hypothetical agent A (BECKERT, 2006). And it depends, finally, on the quality of the expected event and the probability that it occurs (ROBBINS, 2016).
It is clear that regardless of the configuration of the incentives through which the trust relationship materializes, it always emerges from a context of uncertainty. If it were possible to foresee what will happen in the future and the precise chance that the expected event takes place, little or no space would exist for trust (Gambetta, 1988). Despite that, the decision to trust is not entirely random nor, as it is popularly said in the Portuguese language, "a shot in the dark". The act of trusting involves a certain degree of familiarity with the object entrusted (LEWIS; WEIGERT, 1985). According to Lewis and Weigert (1985), this measure varies between total ignorance of the object and total knowledge of it. Trust in conditions of total ignorance is not trust, but rather gambling (LEWIS; WEIGERT, 1985, p.970). On the other hand, trust that is established under conditions of total knowledge is not just trust, but rather certainty (LEWIS; WEIGERT, 1985).
Luhmann (1979, 1988) attributes a central role to familiarity as a constituent element of the decision to trust. According to the author, familiarity, which can also be understood as experience, knowledge of the past, memory, etc., is an essential prerequisite for facing the complexity of the world and the state of uncertainty inherent in it (LUHMANN, 1979, p. 27). Based on what is familiar, that is, what is within the experienced world, in the knowledge of the past, the individual is able to reduce social complexity to meaningful guidelines that serve as background for the materialization of trust. Following this reasoning, trust is distinguished from a mere feeling of hope or blind trust. According to the author, those who trust always have good reasons to trust. The subject who places his trust in someone or in an institution can always justify it socially even knowing the contingency and the risk of trusting.
Based on the degree of familiarity that a person has with the object that can be potentially entrusted, the literature distinguishes at least three types of trust. The first of these is trust between people linked by strong social ties (thick interpersonal trust). This type of trust usually emerges from contexts in which the degree of familiarity among those involved is high. The second is thin interpersonal trust, which arises from contexts in which the degree of familiarity between the affected parties is considered low and the uncertainty is therefore high. And the third and the last, trust in abstract systems or in institutions (system trust or trust in institutions), which arises from absolutely impersonal contexts in which the degree of familiarity between subject and object is further reduced. All three forms of trust, understood in the literature as ideal types in the Weberian sense, are structurally identical, yet slightly distinguished by having different qualities and intensities. Each of these is briefly described below.
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Thick interpersonal trust
Trust between people who are linked by strong social ties is the most intense form of trust and the least likely to dissolve. According to Dmitry Khodyakov (2007), this is the first form of trust that people develop in life. It represents a stage of the process of personal development without which the individual loses the capacity to construct a positive attitude towards the other and to society in general (HONNETH, 2003; GIDDENS, 1991). Thick interpersonal trust usually arises within smaller social spheres that are delimited by physical, psychological, and/or affective bonds between members. It is also commonly observed in less complex societies shaped by tradition, where the certainty of the past overlaps with the uncertainty of the present and the future...
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