FILSAFAT KORUPSI - Direktori File UPI

legal analysis, on the one hand, and the study of norms and public attitudes, on the other. Survey
work from the region provides a fairly comprehensive picture of the attitudes of citizens and the
managers of business firms in the post-socialist countries. This work also sheds some light on
private sector and official behavior and on the nature of public and private institutions. Qualitative
evidence from interviews and focus groups provides insight into the way households and businesses
cope. Nevertheless, we know less than we would like about the actual operation of government
institutions and about private sector organizations and informal groups. The rapidity of year-to-year
changes leaves the analyst with questions about what has actually happened and unsure about the
proper recommendations for reform. Most recent work shows a sharp divergence between the countries of
the former Soviet Union (except for the Baltics) and those that came under Soviet influence only after the
Second World War. There are exceptions and interesting cross-country variations, but as a general rule, the
countries geographically closer to Western Europe are also closer to Western Europe in political,
legal, and economic development than the countries farther east. This suggests that the most
1 Henry R. Luce Professor of Law and Political Science, Yale University. I am grateful to Amnon Lehavi
for very helpful research assistance. Parts II, III and V will appear in somewhat modified form in Kyklos
54: 407-435 (2001). The comments of János Kornai and Margaret Levi are gratefully acknowledged.
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pressing problems and their solutions will differ across the region. In some countries, growing
poverty and inequality suggest a focus on simply avoiding collapse. Some of the laggards in the
region, such as Russia and Ukraine, may need to go through a second transition to escape from
dysfunctional traps where distrust in the state and in others builds on itself over time. In other
countries, one can consider more fine-grained responses both to create institutions that facilitate
trust and honesty and to help change public attitudes and expectations. Trust has many meanings. Part I
distinguishes between three variants: generalized interpersonal trust, one-sided trust or reliability, and twosided
reciprocal trust. It distinguishes between trust that arises from interpersonal interactions over time and
trust based that arises from other sources. I argue that the development of legitimate, well-functioning
governments and markets requires one-sided trust in public institutions. However, tensions can arise
between one-sided trust in institutions and reciprocal trust in friends and family. In my view, the creation of
generalized trust is a weak foundation on which to build a modern democratic market economy.
Part II begins a presentation of data on the region. It reviews the survey evidence on public
attitudes toward the state and on people‘s actual experience coping with state officials in Central
and Eastern Europe. It documents the sharp differences between the western and eastern portions
of the former Communist Bloc. Part III discusses the link between the creation of a trustworthy
state and the role of participatory organizations and considers how these organizations might
increase citizen trust and involvement. Part IV turns to business/state and business/business
relations. It focuses not only on firms‘ relationships with politicians and bureaucrats but also on the
way the law and the courts affect business to business dealings. The paper ends in Part V with
suggestions for future research and policy analysis.
I. Theoretical Foundations and Empirical Issues
Trust implies confidence, but not certainty, that some person or institution will behave in an
expected way. 2 A trusting person decides to act in spite of uncertainty about the future and doubts
about the reliability of others‘ promises. 3 The need for trust arises from human freedom. As Piotr
Sztompka (1999: 22) writes, ―facing other people we often remain in the condition of uncertainty,
bafflement, and surprise.‖ Honesty is an important substantive value with a close connection to trust.
Honesty implies both truth-telling and responsible behavior that seeks to abide by the rules.
4 One may trust another 2 Russell Hardin‘s(2001: 10) view that trust is a type of knowledge or belief, not
an action seems correct although in practice all one may be able to observe is the action that follows.
3 Sztompka (1999: 25-40), Dasgupta (1988: 51). As Annette Baier (1986: 235) writes: ―Where one depends
on another‘s good will, one is necessarily vulnerable to the limits of that good will. One leaves others an
opportunity to harm one when one trusts, and also shows one‘s confidence that they will not take it.‖ Diego
Gambetta characterizes trust as follows. ―Trust (or, symmetrically, distrust) is a particular level of the
subjective probability with which an agent assesses that another agent or group of agents will perform a
particular action, both before he can monitor such action (or independently of his capacity ever to be able to
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