“Guarantors of Trust” in the Public Sphere

This article studies the shift from interpersonal trust to trust in institutions and trust between anonymous citizens. These two cases call for a reexamination of the cognitive bases of trust, since in the former there is no longer a question of knowing people, and in the latter the interactions take place between people who are not acquainted with one another. The author draws to a large extent on two theories: that of R. Hardin and that of C. Offe. However, he disagrees with their conclusion that the idea of trust in institutions is meaningless. He argues that trust in institutions is a specific phenomenon that can be explained if we are able to analyse the mechanisms of “deference” and to find an affordance for it in the public sphere. Publicity, which is not transparency, has the intrinsic power to generate trust in the field of politics and institutions if it is supported by adequate devices – in this case “guarantors of trust”.