Differentiating trust in rural decision-making, Drawing on an English Case Study

Curry, Nigel

Abstract

Within the context of rural civic participation, three different types of trust are described, based on Simmelian-related constructs: personal trust, system trust and instrumental trust. Each has two components, a justification and a leap of faith. These vary in proportion according to degrees of knowledge held. Shifts in public domain decision-making have changed the emphasis of different types of trust. In using constructs of social capital to explore rural decision-making, bonding social capital is seen to cohere around notions of personal trust, bridging social capital around system trust and contested social capital around instrumental trust. In rural decision-making it is suggested, drawing from case study evidence in Gloucestershire, that personal trust is becoming increasingly important because of the localisation of decision-making and ambiguities in representation. A greater reliance is also being placed on system trust because of increasingly complex decision-making structures. While in principle instrumental trust can be ameliorated through access to knowledge and information, increasingly, the volume of information is problematic, and decision-makers are relinquishing their knowledge to 'experts'. © 2009 The Author. Journal Compilation © 2009 European Society for Rural Sociology.

Citation

Curry, N. (2010). Differentiating trust in rural decision-making, Drawing on an English Case Study. Sociologia Ruralis, 50(2), 121-138. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9523.2009.00503.x

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: Apr 1, 2010
• Deposit Date: Jul 20, 2010
• Publicly Available Date: Feb 16, 2016
• Journal: Sociologia Ruralis
• Print ISSN: 0038-0199
• Electronic ISSN: 1467-9523
• Publisher: Wiley
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 50
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 121-138
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9523.2009.00503.x
• Keywords: personal trust, system trust, instrumental trust, rural decision-making
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/980098
• Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9523.2009.00503.x
• Related Public URLs: http://www.wiley.com/bw/submit.asp?ref=0038-0199
• Additional Information: Additional Information : The definitive version is available at www.blackwell-synergy.com