Social Traps and the Problem of Trust

Description

A 'social trap' is a situation where individuals, groups or organisations are unable to cooperate owing to mutual distrust and lack of social capital, even where cooperation would benefit all. Examples include civil strife, pervasive corruption, ethnic discrimination, depletion of natural resources and misuse of social insurance systems. Much has been written attempting to explain the problem, but rather less material is available on how to escape it. In this book, Bo Rothstein explores how social capital and social trust are generated and what governments can do about it. He argues that it is the existence of universal and impartial political institutions together with public policies which enhance social and economic equality that creates social capital. By introducing the theory of collective memory into the discussion, Rothstein makes an empirical and theoretical claim for how universal institutions can be established.

Bo Rothstein is the August Roehss Chair in Political Science at the Goeteborg University in Sweden. Among his publications in English are The Social Democratic State: The Swedish Model and The Bureaucratic Problems of Social Reforms (1996), Just Institutions Matters: The Moral and Political Logic of the Universal Welfare State (Cambridge, 1998), Restructuring the Welfare State (co-edited with Sven Steinmo, 2003) and Creating Social Trust in Post-Socialist Societies (co-edited with Janos Kornia and Susan Rose-Ackerman, 2004).

"This book should be required reading for doctoral programs across the full array of the social sciences...[This] book presents a nuanced theoretical argument that focuses on context and history of complex, cultural settings where choices are made by subjectively rational individuals within institutions that enhance or detract from the existence of trust among the participants over time...[This] reader has gained immensely from two close readings of the book and intends to assign it to her next graduate seminar. Thus, I can recommend the book broadly to the readers of this journal." Elinor Ostrom, Political Psychology