Low trust in government + high interpersonal trust — what might that mean for the UK?
The first of this series of articles showed that British people’s distrust in the government is among the highest in the OECD, that most of us think our politicians are likely to lie and mislead us for their own ends and that on the whole we feel powerless to affect change through the parliamentary system. It also highlighted some of the serious social and economic implications of this for individuals and the way countries develop, based on fascinating new research from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) about the impact of low levels of trust in Latin American and the Caribbean.
The problems identified by the IDB report are the result of a combination of low trust in government and low interpersonal trust. The one difference between them and us is the levels of interpersonal trust. The UK has among the highest levels of interpersonal trust in the world according to the OECD and a new 2022 report from Ipsos Mori. This could make all the difference. (The research is very light on why this is, a pity and a shortcoming of much trust research.)
What happens when people don’t trust governments or each other, is they believe governments incapable of delivering socially beneficial policies and don’t themselves care much about ‘the common good’ anyway. If you think everyone is only out for themselves you may think others don’t even deserve social welfare at all, ‘Looking out for number 1’ seems the smart option.
What different effects could low trust in government but high trust in each other have?
Interpersonal trust means people are more likely to believe ‘others will not act opportunistically, won’t make promises they cannot keep, renege on promises they can keep, or violate norms to take advantage of other people who adhere to them”, (the IDB definition). This means they are they more likely to think their fellow citizens deserve support, to work together for common goals, help each other out collaborate in entrepreneurial ventures and join collective action to hold governments to account. Good for economic growth, good for people.
Lack of trust in government is likely to result in voter apathy because people feel, as the Brits do, that nothing they do makes a difference, so why bother. But if this is complemented by strong interpersonal trust does something different happen? I can’t find much specific research, but here are some ideas.
Collective action — increases in protest?
IDB showed that lack of interpersonal trust mean people didn’t band together to demand change and hold governments to account which resulted in less effective government. So does more interpersonal trust mean they do?
Possibly. In the UK there is a rise in public protest. A Decade of Dissent, a study by the David J Bailey of the University of Birmingham shows significant increases in the number of protests, the type of issues being protested about and the type of protestors. Including those never previously protesting, such as lawyers, doctors, and university lecturers and very young children.
(I can’t find why protests dropped so much in 2012, but I am choosing to make it about the national unification which occurred because of the Olympics!)
With no comparable evidence yet available, 2022 seems to have seen an increase in mass and targeted protests — for example those focused on soaring energy prices; calls for an end to fossil fuel use; protesting the war in Ukraine; focused on police conduct; behaviours of water companies; calling for a second EU Referendum and the protest against the anti-protest bill.
Similarly collaborative industrial action by Rail and Postal workers, Criminal Barristers and potentially even for the first time Nurses, puts the UK on course for having the most industrial disputes in many years.
Of course it is impossible to make any credible extrapolation between loss of trust in government, levels of interpersonal trust and the various forms of collaborative protest and action….but it is tempting!
Helping each other and charitable giving?
Perhaps strong interpersonal trust might mean we are more likely to help each other out through charitable acts? The World Giving Index 2020 shows we are pretty good, 7th, but more likely culturally than others to focus on donation to charities, with the second-highest donation rate of 71%, but 19th on helping strangers and 25th on volunteering.
Collective action - trust and covid
A multi country analysis showed that trust in government does affect behaviour in that ‘people who have high trust in the government have lower infection avoidance behavior when the government does not call for it, whereas they have higher infection avoidance behavior when the government does call for it’. So if you trust the government, you are more likely to do as you are told. Good for government, less so for people if the government are not that trustworthy.
But another study from University of Oxford here in the Guardian, finds that interpersonal trust was the most important factor in compliance with covid rules — social distancing, taking tests, isolating if positive and participating in trackers. ‘Individuals are much more likely to change their behaviour if they trust others to do so as well. After all, if you expect others to break the rules, why should you be the sucker still sitting at home?’
Trust in other people is so important as the study says, because many aspects require collective action and collective action, as the IB study has shown, is less likely without interpersonal trust.
Disappointingly the study doesn’t support my main premise that the UK has strong interpersonal trust! It shows our interpersonal trust was on the lower end and despite a high state of preparedness, second in the world according to the Global Health Security Index, our our deaths per million were high.
But I haven’t found a way to correlate that also with the stats showing we were among the lower end of the Global Stringency Index either.
Another study shows that interpersonal trust allows stringency measures to be adhered to beyond the time when less trusting societies have got fed up and decided to to their own way, but not where we sit on that scale.
I could also imagine other ways in which interpersonal trust may increase covid transmission with perceptions that trusted ‘people like me’ of course won’t put themselves at risk of covid, so I can carry on having my parties. But I won’t go into that here!
So perhaps all that can be concluded from all these studies is that interpersonal trust is important and lack of it is bad for individuals, for governments and for society.
Collective Action for problem solving
But the most important aspect of interpersonal trust may be how it can support and mobilises positive collective action. We saw this in the UK with groundswell of help people gave to each other during covid — shopping and delivering food to neighbours, volunteering and supporting each other in many different ways.
There are many many grass roots organisations and initiatives going from strength to strength filling in the gaps (many perceived as left by government — the very need for which may also reduce trust) and taking proactive steps to find solutions. A few that have come into my inbox recently including the community groups, even hospitals setting up food banks to support people in the cost of living crisis, RSA work on the Universal Basic Income and young people and mental health in Wales, people opening their homes to Ukrainian refugees or setting up citizen initiatives to provide policy guidance, such The People’s Plan For Nature.
As the Oxford study mentioned above concludes:
“The key lesson is that trust is not like some natural resource buried in the ground that some societies are lucky to have and that others can never get. Trust is something we all, individually and collectively, produce through our actions, behaviours, beliefs and institutions. That means it can be built up.”
This applies to trust between governments and their citizens, as well as between citizens themselves.
The next article will explore what the OECD, IDB, IPPR and others suggest governments can do to earn citizen trust and support greater interpersonal trust among its citizens. Where better to start than the IDB suggestion that ‘the solution to low growth, inequality and weakening support for democracy is to make trust an explicit objective of public policy.’
If you would like to look at the first article, with the trust and government statistics it is here
