Social networks of trust based on social values: An explanation of curvilinear relationships between generalized trust and democracy

ABSTRACT Analyses of data from the World Values Survey show that generalized trust in highly democratic societies is stable and strong, but it is also strong in highly authoritarian societies. The goal of this study is to specify the mechanism of the relationship between generalized trust and political institutions. I categorize generalized trust as two types: democratic trust and authoritarian trust. When a society features a mixture of democratic and authoritarian trust, generalized trust tends to be weaker because of conflicts between democratic and authoritarian values. As a result, with diffusing democratic values, generalized trust in a society will first be temporally weakened, but eventually it will strengthen.