Skip to content

Warren 2018 – Trust and Democracy

Page numbers

The PDF is the Oxford Handbooks Online version. The printed page numbers (pp. 75–94) are marked in the text where each new page begins, and page references here follow those markers.

In brief

Warren analyses trust from the standpoint of democratic theory (p. 75) [U]. Democracy and trust have a paradoxical relationship: democracies depend on trust, but their institutions were founded on distrust of the powerful (p. 75) [U]. He distinguishes social trust, first-order institutional trust (in agencies that provide agreed public goods) and second-order institutional trust (in the rules that channel political conflict) (pp. 76, 89–91) [U]. Democratic participation should involve ‘engaged distrust’ directed at political institutions, while trust is warranted in the parts of government that hold ‘a public trust’ (pp. 77–80) [U].

Research question and main claim

  • Questions: what kinds of trust does a democracy need, to what extent does it require distrust, and what kinds of trust and distrust corrode democracy (p. 75) [U]?
  • Main claim: the paradox is only apparent; it disappears when the different kinds of trust are distinguished (p. 76) [U].
  • Warranted trust relationships are ‘common-pool resources’, hard to build and easy to despoil (pp. 76, 91) [U].
  • Generalised distrust, especially when exploited by populist politicians, is one of the most corrosive forces in democratic politics today (pp. 80–81) [U].

Theoretical perspective

  • Democratic theory, with references to Baier, Hardin, Offe, Luhmann, Sztompka, Putnam, Uslaner, Rosanvallon, Pettit and Mansbridge (pp. 75–91) [U].
  • Builds on the author's own earlier work on trust and democracy (p. 91, n. 1) [U].
  • Baier's test for the morality of trust, expanded into a test of publicity (p. 82) [U].
  • Offe's view that trusting an institution means trusting persons who hold offices defined by its rules (p. 88) [U].

Empirical material and context

  • No empirical material of his own. Examples from the US (Bush, Trump, campaign finance, Citizens United), postwar Italy and Banfield's study of southern Italy (pp. 84–87, 89, 91) [U].
  • Reference to findings that trust is higher in less political institutions (police, education, courts) than in legislatures and politicians (p. 77) [U].

Method

  • Conceptual analysis in democratic theory [T – characterisation].

Key concepts

Concept How the source defines or uses it Page U/T
trust An individual's judgement that another is motivated and competent to act in her interests without being monitored 75 U
warrant The knowledge the truster needs to judge that the trustee is competent and has goodwill 81 U
publicity Whether a trust relationship could be justified to those affected by it 81–82 U
social trust Based on interpersonal relations; includes direct, associative, generalised and particularised trust 82–85 U
first-order institutional trust / public trust Trust in agencies with broadly agreed public purposes, e.g. social security, health care, statistics 89–90 U
second-order institutional trust Trust in the rules that make political conflict happen through talking and voting 89, 91 U
engaged distrust Citizens directing participation at political relationships where interests diverge 80, 91 U
mediated clientelism A leader promising personal protection against an untrustworthy government 87 U

How privacy and private data are understood

Topic not addressed [T]. Transparency and publicity are discussed as conditions for trust (pp. 79, 90–91), and Warren notes that transparency also has costs when it replaces institutional norms (p. 91) [U].

Arguments and findings

  • Democracies structure trust in four ways: protect trust in society, separate political domains from service and regulatory agencies, channel distrust into political domains, and empower monitoring (p. 76) [U].
  • Civil servants, judges and appointed regulators hold ‘a public trust’; political institutions do not meet the general requirements for trust because they are partial (p. 77) [U].
  • We should not worry about low trust in political institutions, but we should worry if citizens generalise distrust to institutions that hold a public trust (p. 78) [U].
  • Distrust can only be institutionalised if there is high trust in the institutions that channel politics into voting and talking (p. 78) [U].
  • Citizens cannot monitor everything; they must trust most agents and focus participation where trust is not warranted (p. 80) [U].
  • Democracies support generalised trust through security and rule of law, universal welfare and institutions such as public schools (pp. 84–85) [U].
  • Public trust requires that the norms of public entities are knowable, and that officeholders are subject to sanctions and transparent oversight (p. 90) [U].
  • Populist attacks on the trustworthiness of public bodies are a danger to democracies' collective capacities (pp. 90–91) [U].

Limitations the source itself mentions

  • There is considerable variation across countries (p. 76) [U].
  • Not all particularised trust undermines democracy (pp. 83, 85) [U].
  • Otherwise: Not found in the text.

What the source does not cover

  • Data, digital technology or privacy [T].
  • Norway or the Nordic high-trust societies [T].

Possible relevance for the thesis

  • Trust is likely central in Norwegian documents about the state's use of data. Warren's distinction between trust in public agencies (first-order) and in political institutions (second-order) may help analyse which kind of trust the documents appeal to [T].
  • The conditions for warranted institutional trust – knowable norms, motivations and sanctions (p. 88) – could be compared with how documents justify citizens' trust in the state's data handling [T].
  • The point that transparency has costs when it replaces institutional norms (p. 91) is relevant to transparency arguments [T].

Connections to other sources

Key quotes

“Democracy and trust have an essential but paradoxical relationship to one another.” (p. 75)

“By trust, I mean an individual’s judgment that another person […] is both motivated and competent to act in the individual’s interests and will do so without overseeing or monitoring” (p. 75)

“we should not worry if citizens have low trust in the political institutions of a government […] But we should worry if citizens generalize, distrusting even those parts of government that are designed to hold a public trust.” (p. 78)

“In other words, democratic participation should involve engaged distrust” (p. 80)

“Warranted trust relationships […] should be understood as common-pool resources that are both hard to build and easy to despoil.” (p. 91)

Open questions for Rebekka

  • Which kind of trust do the Norwegian documents appeal to when they discuss the state's use of data – trust in agencies, in politicians, or in the rules?
  • Do the documents describe how citizens can know that their trust is warranted (norms, oversight, sanctions)?
  • Is distrust presented as a problem or as a democratic resource in the documents?
  • Is the Norwegian high-trust context something you need other sources for (e.g. OECD 2022, which is missing as a PDF)?