Politics G53.3100: Trust
Russell Hardin
Fall 2001, Mondays & Wednesdays 2:00-3:45
Office: 652 in 726 Broadway
russell.hardin@nyu.edu
Office hours: Tu 3:00-5:00 or
by appointment
This course is a discussion seminar. The course will focus on ways to understand trust and trustworthiness and to explain personal relations, social order, and economic and professional relations from our understandings of trust. Readings will be from varied perspectives.
Course assignments are a term paper of no more than 25 pages and two papers of no more than 5 pages each, double-spaced, on any topic suitable for a particular session. The term paper should be written as a research paper as though for publication. It should therefore not merely tell what some author has said but should contribute to the debate, for example by examining a relevant problem in trust in political theory or in social order. The short papers are intended to help spur class discussion and each paper must therefore be submitted at the time of the session for which it is written. Ideally, many of the short papers would bring the readings and arguments to bear on clear theses or on specific cases or problems, historical and contemporary. You may use the short papers as opportunities to explore themes for the term paper, but you are not required to do that. The first short paper must be done no later than 25 September and the second no later than 21 October.
We will reserve some time in the last two sessions for brief presentations of term papers.
Readings are heavy in some weeks. Use your own judgment of whether you can skim some discussions and concentrate more heavily on others.
The seminar will be taught in the first half of the semester only, with two meetings most weeks.
Books available for the course (all in paper):
Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone. New York: Simon and Schuster
Francis Fukuyama, Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity, New York: Free Press, 1995.
Piotr Sztompka, Trust.
One important book, now out of print, should be available on the internet: Diego Gambetta, Trust: Making and Breaking Cooperative Relations. London: Blackwell, 1988.
I will make available, at author’s discount, copies of Russell Hardin, Trust and Trusworthiness, New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Copies of other readings will also be made available.
Other useful books and articles include:
Barber, Bernard. 1983. The Logic and Limits of Trust. New Brunswick, N. J.: Rutgers University Press (on professionals).
Brehm, John, and Wendy Rahn. 1997. “Individual-Level Evidence for the Causes and Consequences of Social Capital,” American Journal of Political Science 41: 999-1023.
Coleman, James S. 1990. Foundations of Social Theory. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press (chapters on trust and social capital).
Cook, Karen S., ed. 2001. Trust in Society. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Cook, Karen S., and Russell Hardin. 2000. “Networks, Norms, and Trustworthiness.” In Social Norms, edited by Karl-Dieter Opp and Michael Hechter. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Govier, Trudy. 1997. Social Trust and Human Communities. Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press.
Hardin, Russell. 1999a. “Do We Want Trust in Government?” In Mark Warren, ed. Democracy and Trust. Cambridge University Press: 22-41.
–––––. 1999e. “Social Capital.” In Competition and Cooperation: Conversations with Nobelists about Economics and Political Science, edited by James Alt, Margaret Levi, and Elinor Ostrom. New York: Russell Sage Foundation: 170-189.
–––––. 2000. “The Public Trust.” In Disaffected Democracies: What's Troubling the Trilateral Democracies, edited by Susan J. Pharr and Robert D. Putnam. Princeton: Princeton University Press: 31-51.
–––––. In press. “Gaming Trust.” In Trust and Reciprocity: Interdisciplinary Lessons from Experimental Research, edited by Elinor Ostrom and James Walker. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Kramer, Roderick M., and Tom Tyler, eds. 1996. Trust in Organizations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Kreps, David. 1990. “Corporate Structure and Economic Theory.” In Perspectives on Positive Political Economy, ed. James Alt and Kenneth Shepsle. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (first presentation of the trust game).
Luhmann, Niklas. 1980. Trust: A Mechanism for the Reduction of Social Complexity, in Luhmann, Trust and Power. New York: Wiley: 4-103.
McKean, Roland N. 1975. “Economics of Trust, Altruism, and Corporate Responsibility,” in Altruism, Morality, and Economic Theory, edited by Edmund S. Phelps. New York: Russell Sage Foundation: 29-44.
Patterson, Orlando. 1999. “Liberty against the Democratic State: On the Historical and Contemporary Sources of American Distrust.” In Democracy and Trust, edited by Mark Warren. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 151-207.
Pharr, Susan J., and Robert D. Putnam, eds. 2000. Disaffected Democracies: What's Troubling the Trilateral Democracies. Princeton: Princeton University Press
Rotter, Julian B. 1980. “Interpersonal Trust, Trustworthiness, and Gullibility.” American Psychologist 35: 1-7 (early psychological work presenting a widely used trust scale).
Warren, Mark E., ed. 1999. Democracy and Trust, edited by Mark Warren. Cambridge University Press.
Yamagishi, Toshio, Karen Cook, and Motoki Watabe. 1998. “Uncertainty, Trust and Commitment Formation.” American Journal of Sociology 104: 165-194.
Yamagishi, Toshio, and Midori Yamagishi. 1994. “Trust and Commitment in the United States and Japan,” Motivation and Emotion 18 (1994): 129-166.
Reading assignments
4 Sept. Overview and Outline of issues
Definitions of trust
Trust games
Contexts for trust and some definitions
9 Sept. Selected approaches I
Carol A, Heimer, “Solving the Problem of Trust, in Cook, Trust in Society, pp. 40-88.
Toshio Yamagishi, “Trust As a Form of Social Intelligence,” in Cook, Trust in Society, pp. 121-47.
Jean Ensminger, “Reputations, Trust, and the Principal Agent Problem,” in Cook, Trust in Society, pp. 185-201.
Jack Knight, “Social Norms and the Rule of Law: Fostering Trust in a Socially Diverse Society,” in Cook, Trust in Society, pp. 354-73.
11 Sept. Selected approaches II
Hart, “Kinship, Contract, and Trust,” in Gambetta, pp. 176-93.
Good, “Individuals, Interpersonal Relations, and Trust,” in Gambetta, pp. 31-48.
Luhmann, “Familiarity, Confidence, and Trust: Problems and Alternatives, in Gambetta, pp. 94-107.
Dietland Stolle, “Clubs and Congregations: The Benefits of Joining an Association,” in Cook, Trust in Society, pp. 202-44.
16 Sept. Trust and the economy I
Fukuyama, Trust, pp. 3-82, 149-207 (skim missing parts or, if their countries are of interest to you, read them and skim other bits).
18 Sept. Trust and the economy II
Fukuyama, Trust, pp. 269-362.
23 Sept. A sociological theory I
Sztompka, Trust, pp. ix-xii, 1-101.
25 Sept. A sociological theory II
Sztompka, Trust, pp. 102-190.
30 Sept. An exchange theory
Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, chapters, 1-3 and 6; skim chapter 5.
2 Oct. Distrust I
Gambetta, “Mafia: The Price of Distrust,” in Gambetta, 158-75.
Gellner, “Trust, Cohesion, and the Social Order,” in Gambetta, 142-57.
Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, chapter 4.
Hardin, “Liberal Distrust,” European Review 10 (2002, no. 1): 73-89.
Henry Farrell, “Trust, Distrust, and Power,” forthcoming in Hardin, Distrust (Russell Sage Foundation).
John O. Whitney, “The Economics of Mistrust,” Boston University Law Review 81 (June 2001): 687-705.
7 Oct. Distrust II
Roderick Kramer, “Collective Paranoia: Distrust between Social Groups,” forthcoming in Hardin, Distrust (Russell Sage Foundation).
Margaret L. Brown, “Compensating for Distrust among Kin,” forthcoming in Hardin, Distrust (Russell Sage Foundation).
Hardin, “Terrorism, Generalized Distrust, and Civil Liberties,” forthcoming in Hardin, Distrust (Russell Sage Foundation).
Gabriella Montinola, “Corruption, Distrust, and the Deterioration of the Rule of Law,” forthcoming in Hardin, Distrust (Russell Sage Foundation).
Vadim Radaev, “Coping with Distrust in the Emerging Russian Markets,” forthcoming in Hardin, Distrust (Russell Sage Foundation).
9 Oct. American politics I
Putnam, Bowling Alone, pp. 15-115
14 Oct. American politics II
Putnam, Bowling Alone, pp. 134-246
16 Oct. no class
21 Oct. American politics III
Putnam, Bowling Alone, pp. 247-95, 336-49
Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, chapter 7
23 Oct. no class
28 Oct. FINAL CLASS: Social Capital
Putnam, Bowling Alone, pp. 350-63, 402-24
Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, chapter 8