Political Corruption and Social Trust

Bo Rothstein · Daniel Eek

249 citations0/0 files storedRationality and Society

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Corruption and Economic Development Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies Social Capital and Networks

Abstract

The main question addressed in this paper is how the great variation in the level of social trust in different countries can be explained. Most empirical research on this question has been based on survey data which has limitations when it comes to capturing the causal mechanisms. Building on theories that point to the importance of trustworthy governmental institutions for creating social trust, two parallel experiments were conducted in two countries where the levels of corruption and social trust are very different. One group of 64 Swedish and one group of 82 Romanian undergraduate students responded to a number of scenarios which describe situations at a police station or a doctor's surgery in a foreign country. In the scenarios, the person tries to receive immediate assistance from the police/doctor at the same time as another person who lives in the `unknown' country. These encounters varied within groups in terms of (1) whether or not a bribe was used in order to receive immediate assistance, (2) whether the other person or the official took the initiative to request/offer immediate assistance in exchange for the bribe, and (3) outcome in terms of whether immediate assistance was approved or declined as a result of the offer or demand for a bribe. Type of authority (police vs. doctor) was a between-groups factor. Subsequent to each scenario, participants' levels of various aspects of vertical and horizontal trust were measured. As hypothesized, the Romanian sample had reliably lower initial levels of horizontal trust than the Swedish sample. For both samples, however, the results showed the expected effects of bribe, initiator, and outcome on all dependent trust measures. The results supported the hypothesis that trust in authorities influences the perceptions of the trustworthiness of others in general. Even though some of the effects were stronger for one sample than for the other, the influence of vertical trust on social trust was true for both the high- and the low-trusting sample.

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References

1990Foundations of social theory 1993Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy 2001Human Development Report 1991Foundations of Social Theory 1994Making Democracy Work 1988The Social Psychology of Procedural Justice 2006Understanding Institutional Diversity 2009Understanding Institutional Diversity

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2015The Anthropology of Corruption 2013Corruption and Social Trust: Why the Fish Rots from the Head Down 2018Empirical linkages between good governance and national well-being 2021Suspicion of institutions: How distrust and conspiracy theories deteriorate social relationships 2019Belief in conspiracy theories and intentions to engage in everyday crime 2015“Who Doesn’t?”—The Impact of Descriptive Norms on Corruption 2012Bribes and ballots: The impact of corruption on voter turnout in democracies

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