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Trust: Condition of action or condition of appraisal
Barbalet, Jack
Barbalet, Jack
Author
Abstract
Research in sociology on social trust is historically recent, reflecting changing conditions underlying self-appraisal in late modernity. Acknowledgement of these changing conditions, and especially their institutional background, contributes to a reconceptualization of the notion of trust and the role of inter-personal trust in social relationships. Under conditions of late modernity, described in the article as ‘precarious institutional maturity’, trust operates primarily as a term in a vocabulary of motive or as a value or appraisal regarding self and other, rather than directly facilitating social relationships. The supposed significance of trust, it is shown, tends to be exaggerated in the literature. The importance of the widely neglected institutional context is indicated in part through consideration of the case of guanxi (Chinese connections) in which high levels of social solidarity exist in the absence of trust.
Keywords
Embedded trust, guanxi, institutional forms, inter-personal relations, late modernity
Date
2019
Type
Journal article
Journal
International Sociology
Book
Volume
34
Issue
1
Page Range
83-98
Article Number
ACU Department
Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences
Faculty of Education and Arts
Faculty of Education and Arts
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Open Access Status
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Controlled