Handbook On Political Trust

Political trust – in government, parliament, or political parties – has taken centre stage in political science for more than half a century, reflecting ongoing concerns with the legitimacy and functioning of representative democracy. To provide scholars, students and policy makers with a tool to navigate through the complexity of causes and consequences of political trust, this Handbook offers an excellent overview of the conceptual, theoretical, methodological and empirical state of the art, complemented by accounts of regional particularities, and authored by international experts in this field.

This volume explores the foundations of trust, and whether social and political trust have common roots. Contributions by noted scholars examine how we measure trust, the cultural and social psychological roots of trust, the foundations of political trust, and how trust concerns the law, the economy, elections, international relations, corruption, and cooperation, among myriad societal factors. The rich assortment of essays on these themes addresses questions such as: How does national identity shape trust, and how does trust form in developing countries and in new democracies? Are minority groups less trusting than the dominant group in a society? Do immigrants adapt to the trust levels of their host countries? Does group interaction build trust? Does the welfare state promote trust and, in turn, does trust lead to greater well-being and to better health outcomes? The Oxford Handbook of Social and Political Trust considers these and other questions of critical importance for current scholarly investigations of trust.

"This Handbook covers social and political trust. Essays cover the foundations of both types of trust, whether they have common or different roots. The Handbook includes essays on rational choice approaches to trust, including trust games and experiments-as well as an essay on how we measure trust. There are essays on the cultural and social psychological roots of trust, including how we are more likely to trust people like ourselves than strangers, as well as the place of trust in democracy- how national identity shapes trust, how trust forms in developing countries and in new democracies. Do minority groups are less trusting than the dominant group in a society? Do immigrants adapt to the trust levels of their host countries and do patterns of residence shape faith in others? Does interaction with people in groups build trust? Does the welfare state promote trust and in turn does trust lead to greater well-being and to better health outcomes? There are also essays on the foundations of political trust, political trust and the economy and elections. There are essays linking trust to the law, corruption, tax compliance, and economic growth. Authors also discuss how trust shapes cooperation in the international system and how it shapes attitudes toward international institutions and foreign countries"--

This book, by Sonja Zmerli and Marc Hooghe, presents cutting-edge empirical research on political trust as a relational concept. From a European comparative perspective it addresses a broad range of contested issues. Can political trust be conceived as a one-dimensional concept and to what extent do international population surveys warrant the culturally equivalent measurement of political trust across European societies? Is there indeed an observable general trend of declining levels of political trust? What are the individual, societal and political prerequisites of political trust and how do they translate into trustful attitudes? Why do so many Eastern European citizens still distrust their political institutions and how does the implementation of welfare state policies both enhance and benefit from political trust? The comprehensive empirical evidence presented in this book by leading scholars provides valuable insights into the relational aspects of political trust and will certainly stimulate future research. This book features: a state-of-the-art European perspective on political trust; an analysis of the most recent trends with regard to the development of political trust; a comparison of traditional and emerging democracies in Europe; the consequences of political trust on political stability and the welfare state; a counterbalance to the gloomy American picture of declining political trust levels.

The Oxford Handbooks of Political Science is a ten-volume set of reference books offering authoritative and engaging critical overviews of the state of political science. Each volume focuses on a particular part of the discipline, with volumes on Public Policy, Political Theory, Political Economy, Contextual Political Analysis, Comparative Politics, International Relations, Law and Politics, Political Behavior, Political Institutions, and Political Methodology. The project as a whole is under the General Editorship of Robert E. Goodin, with each volume being edited by a distinguished international group of specialists in their respective fields. The books set out not just to report on the discipline, but to shape it. The series will be an indispensable point of reference for anyone working in political science and adjacent disciplines. What does democracy expect of its citizens, and how do the citizenry match these expectations? This Oxford Handbook examines the role of the citizen in contemporary politics, based on essays from the world's leading scholars of political behavior research. The recent expansion of democracy has both given new rights and created new responsibilities for the citizenry. These political changes are paralleled by tremendous advances in our empirical knowledge of citizens and their behaviors through the institutionalization of systematic, comparative study of contemporary publics--ranging from the advanced industrial democracies to the emerging democracies of Central and Eastern Europe, to new survey research on the developing world. These essays describe how citizens think about politics, how their values shape their behavior, the patterns of participation, the sources of vote choice, and how public opinion impacts on governing and public policy. This is the most comprehensive review of the cross-national literature of citizen behavior and the relationship between citizens and their governments. It will become the first point of reference for scholars and students interested in these key issues.

Scrutinizing a relatively new field of study, the Handbook of Political Party Funding assesses the basic assumptions underlying the research, presenting an unequalled variety of case studies from diverse political finance systems.

Trust has been the subject of empirical and theoretical inquiry in a range of disciplines, including sociology, economics, psychology, philosophy, public policy and political theory. The book approaches trust from a multi-disciplinary scope of inquiry. It explains why most existing definitions and theories of trust are inadequate. The book examines how trust evolved from a quality of personal relationships into a critical factor in political institutions and representation, and to an abstract and impersonal factor that applies now to complex systems, including monetary systems. It makes a distinctive contribution by recasting trust conceptually in dialectical and pragmatic terms, and reapplying the concept to our understanding of critical issues in politics and political economy.

The SAGE Handbook of Political Science presents a major retrospective and prospective overview of the discipline. Comprising three volumes of contributions from expert authors from around the world, the handbook aims to frame, assess and synthesize research in the field, helping to define and identify its current and future developments. It does so from a truly global and cross-area perspective Chapters cover a broad range of aspects, from providing a general introduction to exploring important subfields within the discipline. Each chapter is designed to provide a state-of-the-art and comprehensive overview of the topic by incorporating cross-cutting global, interdisciplinary, and, where this applies, gender perspectives. The Handbook is arranged over seven core thematic sections: Part 1: Political Theory Part 2: Methods Part 3: Political Sociology Part 4: Comparative Politics Part 5: Public Policies and Administration Part 6: International Relations Part 7: Major Challenges for Politics and Political Science in the 21st Century