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All for All: Equality, Corruption, and Social Trust

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 June 2011

Bo Rothstein  and
Eric M. Uslaner
Bo Rothstein
Affiliation:
Goteborg University in Sweden
Eric M. Uslaner
Affiliation:
The University of Maryland-College Park
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Extract

The importance of social trust has become widely accepted in the social sciences. A number of explanations have been put forward for the stark variation in social trust among countries. Among these, participation in voluntary associations received most attention. Yet there is scant evidence that participation can lead to trust. In this article, the authors examine a variable that has not gotten the attention it deserves in the discussion about the sources of generalized trust, namely, equality. They conceptualize equality along two dimensions: economic equality and equality of opportunity. The omission of both these dimensions of equality in the social capital literature is peculiar for several reasons. First, it is obvious that the countries that score highest on social trust also rank highest on economic equality, namely, the Nordic countries, the Netherlands, and Canada. Second, these countries have put a lot of effort in creating equality of opportunity, not least in regard to their policies for public education, health care, labor market opportunities, and (more recently) gender equality. The argument for increasing social trust by reducing inequality has largely been ignored in the policy debates about social trust. Social capital research has to a large extent been used by several governments and policy organizations to send a message to people that the bad things in their society are caused by too little volunteering. The policy implications that follow from the authors' research is that the low levels of trust and social capital that plague many countries are caused by too little government action to reduce inequality. However, many countries with low levels of social trust and social capital may be stuck in what is known as a social trap. The logic of such a situation is the following. Social trust will not increase because massive social inequality prevails, but the public policies that could remedy this situation cannot be established precisely because there is a genuine lack of trust. This lack of trust concerns both “other people” and the government institutions that are needed to implement universal policies.

Type
Research Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 58 , Issue 1 , October 2005 , pp. 41 - 72
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 2005

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References

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7 There is a huge discussion in political philosophy of how to define “equality of opportunity.” It is certainly hard to imagine a society that would, in reality, create equal opportunity for all its citizens. We employ here a narrow definition that focuses on the establishment of public policies that are intended to create equal conditions for citizens regardless of their income, ethnic/religious background, sex, and race in areas such as health care, education, and social security and legal protection (“equality before the law”). Thus, central to our conceptualization of “equality of opportunity” is not whether there is “equality of opportunity” in general but whether the state does (or does not) promote equality of opportunity.

8 In theory, one could imagine a society with huge economic inequality but with perfect equality of opportunity. In practice, it seems as if these two types go together. For example, in contrast to the United States, the Nordic states provide all citizens who qualify for college with tuition-free education and provide benefits like universal health care and elderly care. One measure of the equality of opportunity is the level of educational inequality in a country. Using a measure of the standard deviation of educational attainment provided by Daniel Lederman of the World Bank, we found a modest correlation (r =.367, N = 62) with the Gini index of economic inequality. The correlation is attenuated by greater economic inequality than predicted for African and Latin American countries and lower economic equality than expected for countries in the Indian subcontinent. We found almost identical results using a Gini index of educational inequality (r =.364, N = 55) estimated by Vinod Thomas, Yan Wang, and Xibo Fan, “Measuring Economic Inequality: Gini Coefficients of Education” (Washington, D.C.: World Bank Institute, Office of the Vice President, and Economic Policy and Poverty Reduction Division, January 2001).

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