Citizens of industrialized countries largely share a sense that national and international governance is inadequate, believing not only that public authorities are incapable of making the right policy decisions, but also that the entire network of state and civil society actors responsible for the discussion, negotiation, and implementation of policy choices is untrustworthy. Using agro-environmental policy development in France, the United States, and Canada as case studies, ric Montpetit sets out to investigate the validity of this distrust through careful attention to the performance of the relevant policy networks. He concludes that distrust in policy networks is, for the most part, misplaced because high levels of performance by policy networks are more common than many political analysts and citizens expect.

Citizens of industrialized countries largely share a sense that their national governance is inadequate, believing not only that governments are incapable of making the right policy decisions, but also that the entire network of state and civil society actors responsible for the discussion, negotiation and implementation of policy choices is untrustworthy. Using agro-environmental policy development in France, the United States, and Canada as a case study, Eric Montpetit sets out to investigate the validity of citizens' mistrust through careful attention to the policy-making performance of the relevant policy networks. He concludes that distrust in policy networks is, for the most part, misplaced because high levels of performance by policy networks are more common than citizens appear to expect. Moreover, his analysis reveals that policy networks providing for a participation in governance to powerful interest groups and strong government bureaucracies are more likely to succeed in producing sound environmental policies for agriculture. A timely and crucial contribution to the good governance debate, this book should be required reading for policy-makers and politicians, as well as students and scholars of public policy, political science, environmental studies, and government.

If trust is sometimes the rational response in interpersonal relations, then it can also be rational to distrust. Indeed, distrust is the preferred response when it protects against harm—as when parents do not entrust the safety of their child to a disreputable caretaker. Liberal political theory was largely founded on distrust of government, and the assumption that government cannot and should not be trusted led the framers of the U.S. constitution to establish a set of institutions explicitly designed to limit government power. With contributions from political science, anthropology, economics, psychology, and philosophy, Distrust examines the complex workings of trust and distrust in personal relationships, groups, and international settings. Edna Ullman-Margalit succinctly defines distrust as the negation of trust, and examines the neutral state between the two responses in interpersonal relations. As Margalit points out, people typically defer judgment—while remaining mildly wary of another's intentions—until specific grounds for trust or distrust become evident. In relations between nations, misplaced trust can lead to grievous harm, so nations may be inclined to act as though they distrust other nations more than they actually do. Editor Russell Hardin observes that the United States and the former Soviet Union secured a kind of institutionalized distrust—through the development of the nuclear deterrent system—that stabilized the relationship between the two countries for four decades. In another realm where distrust plays a prominent role, Margaret Levi, Matthew Moe, and Theresa Buckley show that since the National Labor Relations Board has not been able to overcome distrust between labor unions and employers, it strives to equalize the power held by each group in negotiations. Recapitulating liberal concerns about state power, Patrick Troy argues that citizen distrust keeps government regulation under scrutiny and is more beneficial to the public than unconditional trust. Despite the diversity of contexts examined, the contributors reach remarkably similar conclusions about the important role of trust and distrust in relations between individuals, nations, and citizens and their governments. Distrust makes a significant contribution to the growing field of trust studies and provides a useful guide for further research. A Volume in the Russell Sage Foundation Series on Trust

Onora O’Neill is one of the foremost moral philosophers writing today. Her work on ethics and bioethics, political philosophy and the philosophy of Kant is extremely influential. Her landmark Reith Lectures on trust did much to establish the subject not only on the philosophical and political agenda but in the world of media, business and law more widely. Reading Onora O’Neill is the first book to examine and critically appraise the work of this important thinker. It includes specially commissioned chapters by leading international philosophers in ethics, Kantian philosophy and political philosophy. The following aspects of O’Neill’s work are examined: global justice Kant the ethics of the family bioethics consent trust. Featuring a substantial reply to her critics at the end of the book, Reading Onora O’Neill is essential reading for students and scholars of ethics and political philosophy.

An increasing reliance on the Internet and mobile communication has deprived us of our usual means of assessing another party’s trustworthiness. This is increasingly forcing us to rely on control. Yet the notion of trust and trustworthiness is essential to the continued development of a technology-enabled society. Trust, Complexity and Control offers readers a single, consistent explanation of how the sociological concept of ‘trust’ can be applied to a broad spectrum of technology-related areas; convergent communication, automated agents, digital security, semantic web, artificial intelligence, e-commerce, e-government, privacy etc. It presents a model of confidence in which trust and control are driven and limited by complexity in one explanatory framework and demonstrates how that framework can be applied to different research and application areas. Starting with the individual’s assessment of trust, the book shows the reader how application of the framework can clarify misunderstandings and offer solutions to complex problems. The uniqueness of Trust, Complexity and Control is its interdisciplinary treatment of a variety of diverse areas using a single framework. Sections featured include: Trust and distrust in the digital world. The impact of convergent communication and networks on trust. Trust, economy and commerce. Trust-enhancing technologies. Trust, Complexity and Control is an invaluable source of reference for both researchers and practitioners within the Trust community. It will also be of benefit to students and lecturers in the fields of information technology, social sciences and computer engineering.

Leading theoreticians and researchers present current thinking about the role played by group memberships in people's sense of who they are and what they are worth. The chapters build on the assumption, developed out of social identity theory, that people create a social self that both defines them and shapes their attitudes and behaviors. The authors address new developments in the theoretical frameworks through which we understand the social self, recent research on the nature of the social self, and recent findings about the influence of social context upon the development and maintenance of the social self.

This volume will provide an authoritative, state of the art overview of the field of intergroup processes. The volume is divided into nine major sections on cognition, motivation, emotion, communication and social influence, changing intergroup relations, social comparison, self-identity, methods and applications. Provides an authoritative, state of the art overview of the field of intergroup processes. Divided into nine major sections on cognition, motivation, emotion, communication and social influence, changing intergroup relations, social comparison, self-identity, methods and applications. Written by leading researchers in the field. Referenced throughout and include post-chapter annotated bibliographies so readers can access original research articles in order to further their study. Now available in full text online via xreferplus, the award-winning reference library on the web from xrefer. For more information, visit www.xreferplus.com