HUME PAPERS ON PUBLIC POLICY:
Vol 7 No 3 Autumn 1999

TRUST IN PUBLIC LIFE

 

Contents

Foreword xx

1. Introduction
Lorraine Waterhouse and Halla Beloff xx

2. Trust and the Workings of Market Capitalism
Ronald Dore xx

3. Trust and Sociability: on the limits of confidence and role expectation
Adam B. Seligman xx

4. Trust and Information
Herbert Burkert xx

5. Worlds apart: reflections on trust, colonialism and decolonialism
John Overton xx

6. Trust building in Northern Ireland: the role of memory
Paul Arthur xx

7. The Rhetoric of Trust and the Silence of Betrayal
Kay Carmichael xx

8. Stewardship in the long run: Edinburgh Trusts 1770-1870
Richard Rodger xx

 

Contributors

Paul Arthur: University of Ulster
Halla Beloff: University of Edinburgh
Herbert Burkert: University of St. Gallen, Switzerland
Kay Carmichael: a writer based in Glasgow
Ronald Dore: London School of Economics
John Overton: Massey University, New Zealand
Richard Rodger: University of Leicester
Adam B. Seligman: Boston University
Lorraine Waterhouse: University of Edinburgh

Foreword

 

The issue of Trust has been at the centre of a great deal of recent public policy discussion. Since the publication of the 1995 book of that title by Francis Fukuyama, social scientists have been focusing on trust as a key feature in economic and social life. The exact context has been varied, encompassing perceptions of sleaze and questions regarding the trustworthiness of politicians, and the problems of bringing about a peace in Northern Ireland by engendering trust among the various parties. These events and others have given this issue a high degree of topicality. The essays in this issue of Hume Papers on Public Policy, as detailed below in the introduction by Haloff and Waterhouse, offer a wide range of perspectives on, and applications of the powerful notion of Trust. These range from a general analysis that starts with Lenin's view on trust, and ranges through applications in terms on colonialism, the situation in Northern Ireland, reaching as far back as trusts in eighteenth century Edinburgh.

As always, while The David Hume Institute is delighted to be able to publish these papers which relate to such an important aspect of social and economic life, it is necessary to clarify that the Institute itself holds no collective view on these policy matters. We are sure, however, that we can recommend the work of the authors produced here as worthwhile contributions to an aspect of public policy that is emerging as one of major importance.


Brian G M Main
Director
The David Hume Institute

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