What States Do People Trust and How Do They Emerge?

Abstract

As demonstrated in Chapter 3, a well-functioning bureaucratic organization of state activities is an important precondition for the production of trust. But to claim that the vast majority of states in the world work in a bureaucratic way is far from true; indeed, the opposite holds true. Universal rules, if they exist, are implemented in a rather particularistic fashion with limited and occasionally no transparency, and are frequently combined with different forms and degrees of corruption. I will explore corruption further in its more common manifestation in the following chapter. In this chapter, I consider in greater detail the social preconditions necessary for the development of bureaucracy as a form for organizing state activities and the development of the specific form of political corruption generally termed clientelism. In this endeavor, I will examine the case countries of Sweden and Greece. Sweden has an international reputation as a country where its citizens trust the state; in Greece the opposite seems to be the case. I will now turn my attention to what kind of states people trust and how they emerge.