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This chapter compares trust behavior derived from moral beliefs that comport with the moral foundation to trust behavior as conceived under existing theories of trust. It shows that whereas conventional theories do not square well with existing empirical evidence at either the micro or macro level, trust behavior rooted in moral beliefs that comport with the moral foundation does. It discusses the implications this book has for arguments made by institutional theorists against the relevance of trust. It shows why, if a society has a sufficiently high proportion of individuals who abide by the moral foundation, it will enjoy a condition of generalized trust, making it possible for its people to trust each other at the micro level while at the same time making it possible for trust-dependent institutions to exist at the macro level.

This chapter discusses the issue of measuring trust and then compares the ANES and the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) measures with each other as well as with the two new measures in the 2006 Pilot Study. It first examines the comparability of the four measures through the standard question—“Generally speaking, do you believe that most people can be trusted, or can't you be too careful in dealing with people?” The chapter also examines how well each performs with respect to theoretical expectations. If the ANES adopts a new trust question, the chapter considers if that measure shows patterns of association similar to those of the older indicator.

This chapter discusses the factors that determine the success of mafia transplantation. It first sets out several theoretical insights into why mafias find it difficult to become entrenched in foreign countries. It then discusses the conditions under which mafiosi succeed in become entrenched once they find themselves in the new territory. For some authors, the level of generalized trust (trust in others whom we do not know) in the new land is an important variable that could explain the entrenchment of mafias. The presence of a genuine demand for criminal protection, the core activity of mafias, also leads to long-term transplantation.

This chapter starts with a discussion of the different definitions of trust (bridging versus bonding trust, generalised versus particularised trust, moralistic versus strategic trust, vertical trust). This is followed by a presentation of theories from two different discourses: the literature on social capital and that on civic education. What are the sources of generalised trust? The chapter discusses major explanations of the origins of generalised trust, as these relate to organisations, family, the economy and institutions. It also reviews the literature on civic education and discusses factors in the school environment that may influence students' values, such as the formal curriculum, the school and classroom climate, and teachers' experience, educational background or personal values.

Drawing on panel data and multivariate regression analysis, this chapter explores possible change between two surveys: one conducted in 2002 and the other in 2005. The analysis is based on an index of trust that measures Palermo students' trust in persons who are not personally known to them. The chapter focuses on variables at the school level and the classroom level, for example openness of school structures, fairness of institutions, caring school environment, peer interaction, openness of classroom climate, and aspects of the school programme. Is it possible to see whether any of these institutional school variables have an impact on students' generalised trust? Is it possible to change students' values through civic education at a grass-roots level? The importance of institutions for the development of generalised trust has been analysed in several studies on social capital.

This book has raised the question of whether it is possible to fight persistent values of distrust and non-cooperation in Palermo. Is it possible to support the development of trust between citizens through public action from above, through civic education? A general criticism of Robert Putnam's Making Democracy Work is that he neglected state agency and the Mafia in his analytical model, when explaining the lack of trust in southern Italy. This book has focused on institutional explanations and has analysed more recent political efforts to break the heritage of the past, that is, to turn the vicious circle of non-cooperation into a virtuous circle based on trust and cooperation. The primary aim of the project is to contribute to theories on social capital, and particularly to analyse whether institutions matter for the development of generalised trust. In the book, the impact of educational institutions on students' generalised trust has been explored. Letters from the Letter Project offered insights on why different variables were important, if not all of them, for students' development of generalised trust.

Research shows that the existence of social capital in a society — or, in the context of the study described in this book, more specifically generalised trust — could be decisive not only in the prevention of crime, but also for economic development and an effective democracy. Although generalised trust and cooperation are highly desirable for any society — and many societies are indeed marked by high levels of trust and cooperation — societies may fall into a negative cycle of distrust and non-cooperation, which is difficult to break. This book explores institutional explanations and more recent political efforts to break the heritage of the past, that is, to turn the vicious circle of non-cooperation into a virtuous circle based on trust and cooperation, and to change citizens' perceptions of society. It looks at Palermo, a city in Italy where school policy represented a cultural warfare, where the dominant role model offered by the Mafia was challenged. The book focuses on a top-down action to change a predominating political culture of distrust, that is, by civic education at a grass-roots level.

This chapter offers a descriptive analysis of Palermo students' level of interpersonal or generalised trust, with emphasis on their trust in others. In the literature on Italy, southern Italians are often described as less trustful than people in other parts of Italy. In this chapter, the statistics are based on the two questionnaires, distributed in 2002 and 2005. Statistics are presented for total samples and by socio-economic area. Different types of questions are used in order to analyse students' perceptions of other people. Two standard questions on trust that are frequently employed in international and national surveys and that are closely related are fielded: ‘Generally speaking, do you believe that most people can be trusted or that nobody can be trusted?’, and ‘Do you believe that most people try to help each other or that people generally only think about themselves?’. The chapter examines how much trust students have in family, relatives, and neighbours; how much trust they have in their classmates, teachers, school principals, and school staff; and their degree of trust in Palermitans, Sicilians, Italians or foreigners.

This chapter reviews the literature on the causes of individuals’ generalized social trust (trust in unknown others) from a wide range of social science disciplines. The chapter structures the review around two broad classes of explanations: dispositional explanations (trust as a disposition) and experiential explanations (trust as a response to individual experiences). Both have been examined in a number of related lines of research, which are reviewed and critically discussed in the chapter. Specific attention is paid to the potential for drawing causal inference—based on the nature of the data employed, and the methods used—in the studies reviewed.

This chapter explains how societies can climb a development ladder whereby each step leads to a larger set of transactions through which to increase the value of output per capita. Each step higher is harder because each step adds transactions that require higher levels of social trust. The problem is that many of the benefits of climbing the ladder are realized at the level of society as a whole, so individual adults and individual parents have much to gain by conserving on their own resources while allowing everyone else in society to invest into the inculcation of the required moral beliefs to produce a high-trust society. There is a public good problem associated with investing enough to best promote the common good. This problem is particularly daunting for the kind of moral beliefs required to produce trustworthy individuals and it worsens with societal success.

This chapter investigates the role of civil society and social capital in the formal development of the third sector worldwide. It starts with a brief overview of civil society and social capital and goes on to consider how civil society works as a dynamic force within the entirety of a political and social experience. It then discusses organizations as integrative mechanisms in social life, with particular emphasis on how associational life and civil society are intertwined with themes of social integration, social capital, and generalized trust. It also examines the institutionalization of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and the growth of the third sector in the 1980s and 1990s; the question of effectiveness and evaluation in civil society organizations, especially in the United States; and the tension that arises between the logic of professionalization and other institutional logics such as activism. Finally, the chapter looks at social enterprise as an alternative to the traditional format of the NGO.

This book studies third sectors in different parts of the world. The third sector refers to various types of relief and welfare organizations, innovation organizations, public service organizations, economic development organizations, grassroots mobilization groups, advocacy groups, and social networks. These include civil society organizations, nonprofit organizations, nongovernmental organizations, and formal and informal associations. Building on recent work on the origins, dynamics, and effects of civil society across the globe, this book compares the functions, impacts, and composition of the nonprofit sector for six countries: United States, France, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and China. This introduction explains the book's approach of using institutional logics to study the third sector, offers new theoretical perspectives on how different types of participation can increase generalized trust and state legitimacy, and considers the impact of neoliberalism and the so-called “New Political Culture” on nonprofits. It also discusses the emergence of New Social Movements and how associational politics might fit into the large picture of political life.