1. Power and Trust
Professor: Dr. A. Ghorbani
Student: Mostafa Goodarzi
Kharazmi university
Std_Goodarzi.Mostafa@Khu.ac.ir
April 2018
2. Main sources
COOK, KAREN S. (2001) Trust in Society, USA: Russell Sage Foundation.
Harwood, William Thomas (2012) The Logic of Trust, USA: University of York.
Lee, Catherine (2007) The New Rules of International Negotiation: Building
Relationships, Earning Trust, and Creating Influence Around the World, USA: The
Career Press.
Tilly, Charles (2005) Trust and Rule, UK & USA: Cambridge University Press.
Unknown writer, Frist draft Political Legitimacy – A Right to Rule or a Power to
Command?
http://www.politicalsciencenotes.com
سردارنيا،خليلاله؛حسينقدرتيوعليرضااسالم(1389)سرمایه و خوب حکمرانی تأثيراجتماعی
براعتمادسياسی:مطالعهموردي؛شهرهايو مشهدسبزوار،پژوهشنامهسیاسی علوم،
زمستان ،اول شماره ،پنجم سال1388،صص135-165.
الريجاني،عليغالمرضا ؛غالميابرستانرابطه ،سياسی نظام در مشروعيت و اقتدار،اسالم
فصلنامهعلميپژوهشيعلومسیاسيروابط وبینالملل،صص65-92.
3. Briefing
Defining the concepts of power and trust
Different style of trust-building
Trust Network
political legitimacy and Trust
trust and democracy
Distrust and De-Democratization
Threats to Democracies
Distrust-Building
Corruption
unfair legal system
5. Power
In social science and politics, power is the ability to influence or outright control the
behaviour of people. The term "authority" is often used for power perceived as
legitimate by the social structure.
Power and authority are perhaps the most vital aspects of all organisations in general
and political organisations in particular. Power is related to taking of decisions and
for the implementation of those decisions.
No organisation, whatever may its nature be, can do its duty or achieve objectives
without power.
Naturally power relates to the relationship or interaction between two or among more
than two elements or actors.
6. Trust
Dictionary definition: firm belief in the reliability, truth, or ability of someone or
something.
Trust is the fundamental basis for any working relationship (Lee 2007: 205).
The word “trust” commonly calls up an individual attitude toward a person or an
institution. (tilly 2005: 11)
People’s trust on state’s institutions is more important than on their administrators.
Earning trust Vs. building trust
Creating influence is the goal of trust
Within a negotiation you might have only a couple of hours at a time or four or five
meetings, and yet you have to build trust and solidify the relationship (Lee 2007: 130)
7. Trust
Although in social psychology, sociology, anthropology, organizational studies,
economics, and political science, there is no clear consensus among them on the
precise meaning of the term “trust”, but all would agree that trust plays a significant
role in the functioning of social groups and societies. (cook 2001:17)
Trust binds us together. It allows us to live together in relative freedom, work together
for common goals and delegate power, authority and action, to others. (Harwood
2012: 19)
The process of trust-building is not hundred percent.
8. Different style of trust-building
All of Asia places relationships as their top priority in doing business. In fact, in
most Asian countries, trust is more important than the quality and durability of the
product. The relationship is more important than the final agreement (Lee 2007:
33).
In the west discipline and regulations are the main factors of trust-building.
The Four Strategic Virtues for a successful trust-building: (Lee 2007:122)
1. Consideration
2. Acceptance
3. Respect
4. Empathy
9. Two kind of Trust
Horizontal trust
People to people
Vertical trust
People to the State or its institutions
10. Trust Network
Networks reach into every corner of social life.
Social networks include any set of similar connections among three or
more social sites.
Connections include communication, mutual recognition, shared
participation in some activity, flows of goods or services,
transmission of diseases, and other forms of consequential
interaction. (tilly 2005: 5)
Maintaining the boundary between “us” and “them” clearly plays an
important part in trust networks’ continued operation.(tilly 2005: 6)
11. political legitimacy and Trust
The more people’s trust government the more political legitimacy rulers can
achieve.
‘Power to Command View’ Vs. ‘Right to Rule View’ (unknown writer: 3)
To inquire about the legitimacy of an authority is in the first instance to
inquire into its right to make decisions for others (Ibid 8)
12. Relationship between trust and democracy
mutual trust
1. As Margaret Levi’s analysis of contingent consent indicates,
collaboration with government on the basis of commitment
rather than coercion depends on expectations that others will
bear fair shares of the governmental burden – pay their taxes,
perform their military service, and so on.
13. Relationship between trust and democracy
2. Democracies are supposed to require higher
levels of trust in government than other sorts of
regimes because the voluntary delegation of
powers to representatives and officials can only
occur on the basis of extensive trust.
14. Relationship between trust and democracy
3. Alternation of factions in power depends
on the trust of current non incumbents that their
turn will come, or at least that incumbents will
honor their interests.
15. Relationship between trust and democracy
4. From the perspectives of most political actors
democracy is inherently a riskier, more contingent
system than others; therefore only actors having
significant trust in the outcomes of democratic
politics will collaborate with the system at all. (tilly
2005:133)
16. Distrust and De-Democratization
If integration of trust networks into public politics promotes
democratization, their withdrawal from public politics
weakens democracy. (Tilly 2005:144)
Withdrawal can occur either voluntarily or involuntarily.
(Ibid)
17. voluntarily
Groups of citizens can sever their commitments to public politics at
large by creating their own alternatives to government services or
acquiring private control over different pieces of government.
White segregationists that created private school systems during the
American civil rights era did the first, whereas regulated industries that
co-opt their regulators do the second.
18. Involuntarily
Connected group can suffer categorical exclusion or
termination of the institutions that previously tied them to
the regime.
In most theories of democracy, democratization is hard to
achieve, but also difficult to reverse. (tilly 2005:145)
19. Two Threats to Democracies
First, even in rich, powerful countries democracy remains vulnerable
to withdrawal of trust networks from public politics, especially if
the networks that withdraw have subjected the rich and powerful to
the give and take of contention.
Private and home schooling, exclusive clubs and religious sects,
gated communities, and capture of governmental agencies or
offices for private profit all provide means for elites to secure their
own advantages without subjecting themselves to the costs and
constraints of public politics.
20. Causing Distrust in Democracies
Privatization of social security or health care, withdrawal of
elites or minorities from public schools, and substitution of
electronic communication for direct contact among political
activists all have the potential of producing just such destructive
withdrawal of existing trust networks from public politics in
today’s democracies, and therefore of damaging democracy.
(tilly 2005:11)
21. Two Threats to Democracies
Second, to the extent that members of trust networks in
relatively undemocratic countries manage either to subordinate
government to those networks or to maintain themselves
without integration into public politics, prospects for
democracy will remain dim in those countries.
In those countries, totalitarianism, theocracy, and patron-client
politics seem more likely futures than democracy.
22. Distrust-Building
There are two related aspects of government that are important for
generalized trust (social solidarity):
1) Corruption
2) Fairness of the legal system
Corruption and an unfair legal system can lead to less trust because
they exacerbate inequality.
23. Corruption
The roots of corruption lie in the unequal distribution of resources in a
society.
Economic inequality provides a fertile breeding ground for corruption–
and, in turn, it leads to further inequalities.
The connection between inequality and the quality of government is
not necessarily so simple: As the former Communist nations of Central
and Eastern Europe show, you can have plenty of corruption without
economic inequality.
The path from inequality to corruption may be indirect– through
generalized trust– but the connection is key to understanding why some
societies are more corrupt than others.
24. Corruption
Corruption thrives in an atmosphere of low trust. When people trust their fellow
citizens, they are more likely to behave honestly toward them.
Corruption is high when generalized trust is low and particularized trust is
strong, as Gambetta argues for the Italian Mafia.
Particularized trust makes it easier for people to cheat people who are different
from themselves.
25. unfair legal system
The justice system is especially important for two reasons.
First, a corrupt court system can shield dishonest elites from
retribution.
Second, the courts, more than any other branch of the polity,
is presumed to be neutral and fair.
