High trust and low trust societies
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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"It is not possible for Nigerians to get life insurance. This is because, given the opportunism of the relevant professions, a death certificate can be purchased without the inconvenience of dying."--Exodus: How Migration Is Changing Our World (2013) by Paul Collier |
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A low trust society is defined as one in which interpersonal trust is relatively low, and which do not have shared ethical values.
Institutions and mechanisms
According to researchers, low trust societies are typically kinship based; outcomes of low trust societies can include difficulty in forming and maintaining corporate structures. Mechanisms and institutions that are corrupted, dysfunctional, or absent in low-trust societies include respect for private property rights, a trusted civil court system, democratic voting and acceptance of electoral outcomes, and voluntary tax payment. Research has identified a correlation between individualism with high-trust societies, and collectivism with low-trust cultures.
Self governance
High-trust societies display a high degree of mutual trust not imposed by outside "contractual, legal or hierarchical regulation", but instead are based upon "prior moral consensus". Much writing on the subject refers to Francis Fukuyama's 1995 book, Trust: Social Virtues and Creation of Prosperity, in which he describes "the ability of various peoples to organize effectively for commercial purposes without relying on blood ties or government intervention".
