Trust and Social Capital in Cross-Cultural Perspective: Examining the Key Indicators and Newest Trends

Trust and social capital constitute important factors essential for the establishment of sustainable and accountable political systems, participatory democracies, cohesive and inclusive societies. Development of survey research in the recent three decades has contributed to the formation of an extensive empirical data-base offering a variety of measures of trust and social capital. Yet analysis of this empirical evidence frequently reveals a significant cross-national and cross-regional variation in the patterns of interplay between trust, social capital, and communities development. This session invites papers exploring causal links between various forms of social capital and trust on one hand, patterns and trends of social, economic and political development of communities and societies in different cultural environments on the other. In particular, papers addressing the role of social capital and trust in the pandemic management or the impact of the pandemic on trust and social capital will be considered. We particularly welcome papers employing quantitative survey empirical evidence originating from comparative global research programs such as the WVS, ISSP, CSES, CNEP, EVS, ESS, Global Barometer Survey etc. and proposing innovative methodologies and approaches to the development of social indicators and multi-component indexes of trust and social capital.