Charlie Edwards
Senior Researcher
Charlie Edwards writes, lectures and consults on national security, resilience, defence and intelligence. He works with international institutions, government departments, companies, and NGOs. He is a regular commentator in the national and international media.
at 8:17am on Monday, 30th June 2008
From the Pew Research Centre:
"Trust," political scientist Eric Uslaner has written, "is the chicken soup of social life." Over the last two decades, social scientists have repeatedly suggested that good things tend to happen in societies where people tend to trust each other -- they have stronger democracies, richer economies, better health, and they suffer less often from any number of social ills.
As the 2007 Pew Global Attitudes survey highlighted, the degree of trust in societies varies considerably around the world. Moreover, while the survey finds that social trust is not strongly correlated with our measures of democracy or economic performance, it is strongly correlated with views about two other important issues: crime and corruption. In countries where people generally trust one another, there are fewer worries about crime or corrupt political leader.
Good graphs here and here. Makes me wonder whether we can correlate trustworthiness in communities and their resilience to risks.
"Trust," political scientist Eric Uslaner has written, "is the chicken soup of social life." Over the last two decades, social scientists have repeatedly suggested that good things tend to happen in societies where people tend to trust each other -- they have stronger democracies, richer economies, better health, and they suffer less often from any number of social ills.
As the 2007 Pew Global Attitudes survey highlighted, the degree of trust in societies varies considerably around the world. Moreover, while the survey finds that social trust is not strongly correlated with our measures of democracy or economic performance, it is strongly correlated with views about two other important issues: crime and corruption. In countries where people generally trust one another, there are fewer worries about crime or corrupt political leader.
Good graphs here and here. Makes me wonder whether we can correlate trustworthiness in communities and their resilience to risks.
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