‘Why Should I Trust You?' an Empirical Investigation of Determinants of Trust and Distrust in Romanian Post-Socialist Urban Society

Trust is a key factor in the development of collective action, and thus in the performance of communities, institutions and society. Seminal scholarship has greatly valued the social virtues of trust and to a lesser degree those of caution. Consequently, scholars have expressed concerns regarding the socialist ‘legacy of distrust’, which have negatively influenced processes of democracy and development in the post-socialist states. While quantitative measurements of trust have become standard in cross-national surveys, in depth qualitative research has remained exceptional but helpful. By employing a mixed-method design of cross-national analysis of secondary data and qualitative examination of 69 in-depth interviews in a post-‘socialist city’, this paper investigates the determinants of (dis)-trust in post-socialist Romania. The analysis draws attention to the entwined social and rational origin of trust and distrust. Findings show that institutional trust has risen from practically zero due to better public management and freedom to express opinions. However, institutional trust has remained low due to perceptions of widespread bribery and favouritism – not necessarily experienced but reinforced through social learning and the media – and to a general discontent with some institutions, particularly the police, the political elite and the judiciary. Conversely, interpersonal trust has been rapidly declining though it had not entirely vanished and has remained generally confined to families and bounded groups. By growing social distrust, people have reacted to the increasing social inequality during the post-socialist transition and its associated figures of the insular individualist and predatory capitalist. This does not invalidate the thesis of socialist ‘legacy of distrust’, but significantly adds to it. Data quantification suggests that the effect of increasing social inequality during transition is six times stronger than the effect of persistent communist legacies on current levels of social distrust. This has important policy implications, which are outlined in this paper.