In recent years, many scholars
have questioned how the decline of interpersonal trust has
affected American political life. Eric Uslaner adds to this
literature by explaining the causes of the decline of
generalized trust in America and the political importance of
having a trusting society.
One of the more important
contributions Uslaner makes to the study of trust is the
thorough distinction between "strategic trust" and
"moralistic trust." Many accounts in the trust literature
have focused on knowledge-based trust (e.g., Claus Offe’s
"Trust and Knowledge, Rules and Decisions: Exploring a
Difficult Conceptual Terrain," in Mark A. Warren, ed.,
Democracy and Trust, 1999). In other words, actor A
expects actor B to behave in a certain fashion because of
previous experiences withthat individual. In more extreme
versions of this theory (such as in Russell Hardin’s
Trust and Trustworthiness, 2002), one can develop trust
only on a one-by-one basis through specific interactions
with an individual and cannot generalize to a larger group
of people through his or her experiences.
Uslaner demonstrates that the
strategic account of trust can be problematic in studies of
social capital. For instance, Robert Putnam in Bowling
Alone (2000) asserts that participation in social
organizations can improve trust and that it is the secular
decline in participation that has led to reduced trust in
other people. However, Uslaner is quick to point out that
the kind of people one meets in these sorts of activities
are likely to be similar to oneself. How then do we learn to
trust people with whom we have nothing in common? Clearly,
such "trusters" exist, but their decision to trust people
in general cannot be based on a strategic calculation,
because people lack the necessary experience to make such an
evaluation (Hardin’s "Trusting Persons, Trusting
Institutions," in Richard J. Zeckhauser, ed., Strategy
and Choice [1991] makes a similar point about the
difficulties of strategically trusting the government).
It is here that the importance
of understanding moralistic trust emerges. Unlike strategic
trust, moralistic trust generally is not based on recent
experiences and does not require a calculation of risk.
Additionally, moralistic trust is not altered by a few bad
experiences with individuals; a single bad experience does
not destroy one’s faith in mankind. In fact, faith is a good
way to describe moralistic, or generalized, trust.
Generalized trusters trust a wide range of people, not just
people like themselves or who share their own values.
Furthermore, generalized trust exists in many contexts. As
Uslaner states, "A trusts, rather than A
trusts B to do X" (p. 27).
Despite the differences between
moralistic and strategic trust, both have experienced a
decline in recent decades. The question then is that if
generalized trust is unrelated to organizational
participation, what has caused its decline? Uslaner presents
two main foundations for moralistic trust: optimism and
economic equality. The two most important components of
optimism are the belief that the future will be better than
the past and that we as individuals can control our
environment. It is this type of faith that allows people to
overcome setbacks.
What is more provocative is the
connection Uslaner makes between economic inequality and the
decline of generalized trust in America. The perception that
one is worse off than others has contributed to the decline
of trust. While some perceptions of inequality do come from
television images of the extremely wealthy, most come from
viewing the world around oneself. When objectively measured
economic inequality is high, people are less likely to be
optimistic about their ability to overcome hardship through
hard work.
Through his analyses, Uslaner
directly challenges many arguments made by Putnam (2000).
For example, contrary to the picture of American small-town
life as communities of trusting citizens, people who live in
small towns are likely to be particularized trusters of
their own kind, but distrustful of strangers and outsiders.
Moreover, he shows that trust did not begin to erode with
the advent of the baby boom generation and the television
age. Rather, the early baby boom generation (born 1946 to
1955) is actually the most trusting, because this generation
has experienced the least economic inequality and is the
last generation to do better than the generation of its
parents.
Given that Uslaner focuses on a
different conception of trust than has been used previously,
it is important to address the question of why generalized
trust matters. He shows that generalized trusters are more
likely to hold a host of political attitudes many would
consider beneficial. They are more likely to give positive
evaluations of groups that have traditionally faced
discrimination and are more supportive of the legal order in
society. These types of attitudes translate into a greater
willingness to serve on juries and to contribute to causes
that help the less fortunate (he notes that particularized
trusters, while more participant in activities that may
benefit themselves, are not more likely to help the needy).
At the aggregate level, while declining trust has no
apparent relationship with civic engagement, it has hindered
collective action where a high level of cooperation between
disparate groups is required.
The scope of the arguments in
The Moral Foundations of Trust is impressive. Uslaner
consults a wide variety of survey data sources (regrettably,
some of these sources are somewhat dated) and uses a number
of statistical approaches in this pursuit. It is here that
the book would benefit from more explanation of the
reasoning behind the models and statistical techniques he
uses. For example, he does not explain why he imputes data
in Chapter 7 or the choice of the imputation method. More
seriously, because many of the findings rest on testing
causal ordering between variables through simultaneous
models (e.g., the relationships between trust and optimism
and between trust and volunteerism), Uslaner should have
devoted more time to how he developed and tested the
specifications of his models. These criticisms
notwithstanding, this book provides a careful treatment of
why we should consider generalized trust separately from
specific trust. It is a significant contribution to the
trust and social capital literatures.
And here is what Julia
Schafer and Stephanie Stuck of the University of Mannheim
wrote in Politische Vierteljahresschrift, 45: March
2004 (graciously translated by Helmut Lott of the University
of Maryland):
Eric M.
Uslaner. The Moral Foundations of Trust. Cambridge
University Press 2002, 297 p., $23 (paperback), $63
(hardcover).
“Trust is the chicken soup of social
life,” for trust has, just like chicken soup, many positive
effects but cannot solve every problem. This is Eric
Uslaner’s point of view in his book The Moral Foundations
of Trust. In his opinion generalized trust is general
openness based on basic moral convictions, collective
experiences, and optimistic attitudes regarding complete
strangers. Uslaner parts with many scholars of social
capital, as he believes that there is no connection between
generalized trust and social participation. Relying on a
variety of data sets he investigates the conditions and
consequences on the level of the individual as well as
comparative state level data.
Uslaner distinguishes between
knowledge-based strategic trust on one hand and moral trust
on the other. Strategic trust rests on information and
expectations. It relates to specific persons, develops
slowly with experience and is fragile. Moral trust, on the
other hand, represents a complete system of values that
children acquire from their parents and that changes
throughout life only little. It reflects a “general outlook
on human nature” (17) and includes the conviction that
complete strangers share basic values. Moral trust is
therefore the foundation of generalized trust. Particular
trust, on the other hand, rests on knowledge and is
different from generalized trust also through the smaller
sphere of one’s own “moral community” (21): while people
with particular trust only extend trust to a tightly defined
group of people (in-group) they meet outsiders generally
skeptically. Individuals with generalized trust evaluate
their in-group not substantially better than out-groups.
Uslaner explicitly foregoes the term
social capital but on balance this is a book that adds many
interesting aspects to the present social capital debate.
The clear distinction between strategic and moral trust
contributes to the necessary specification of the concept
trust. Furthermore one must emphasize the empirical
investigation of the causal relationship between trust and
participation. Uslaner documents his hypothesis that civil
engagement does not lead to more trust in strangers. He
explains the American decline in trust since the sixties
with generational effects. Unlike the proponents of the
social capital theory he emphasizes not the importance of
social participation but collective experiences such as the
civil rights movement and the Vietnam War. Uslaner’s
analysis furthermore reveals that tolerance and social
equality are important for a society’s level of trust.
Uslaner also confirms the notion that generalized trust
reflects the general attitude about strangers because
fundamental optimism proves to be a key factor for
generalized trust. Especially the treatment of optimism as
a moral conviction as product of socialization is an
interesting addition to the social capital models.
The Moral Foundations of Trust
is enriching reading for interested lay readers as well as
expert researchers. The book’s style is stimulating
supplementing data and arguments with anecdotes from
Uslaner’s personal experience. The fact that Uslaner places
data analysis in footnotes facilitates considerable
empirical analysis while preserving good readability. On
the other hand, occasionally it is not possible to entirely
understand his data analysis because the composition of the
indicators or the type of the statistical model is unclear.
Terms such as “faith,” “interpersonal trust,” “generalized
trust” or “trust” without informing the reader of the
(apparently) synonymous use (see page 56, for example) are
confusing.
In summary, Uslaner goes beyond the
known hypotheses and simple correlations regarding the
relevance of trust for the workings of democratic societies
and attempts to question the conventional wisdom of the
debate theoretically as well as empirically. He raises not
only questions about many assumptions of the social capital
debate but provides stimulating and innovative theses that
enliven the debate. Therefore Eric Uslaner’s The Moral
Foundations of Trust may well turn out to be chicken
soup for the debate about social capital.
The Moral Foundations of Trust
Chapter
1 introduces the manuscript. Chapter 2 lays out the difference
between strategic and moral trust. Chapter 3 takes care
of some measurement issues (including defending the trust
question against charges it doesn't measure what it purports
to) and also shows that trust is stable over time. Chapter
4 shows that moralistic (generalized) trust doesn't depend
upon experience, but on optimism and a sense of control
(and comes from one's parents). Chapter 5 examines
the purported linkages between informal socializing, membership
in civic associations, trust in government, and personal
experiences and trust in other people. In virtually
every case, both informal socializing and group membership
neither produce nor consume trust. The only types
of civic activities that are strongly related to trust are
volunteering and giving to charity, both of which link us
to people who are different from ourselves. Neither
trust in government nor trust in people we know leads to
generalized trust in strangers.
Chapter
6 focuses on how trust changes over time, both for individuals
and in the aggregate. As people become more optimistic,
they become more trusting. And in particular there
are powerful effects for two forms of "collective"
experiences, the civil rights movement (which increased
trust) and the war in Vietnam (which lowered trust among
opponents). 
