Trust. A Sociological Theory. - Review - book review

Piotr Sztompka: Trust. A Sociological Theory

1999, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 226 pages.

You cannot judge a book by its cover. However, in the case of Piotr Sztompka's recent study on the sociology of trust, I think it is worthwhile to use the picture of Raymond Mason's monumental sculpture 'The Illuminated Crowd' on the front page of the book, at least as an insightful starting point for this review. After all, the Polish sociologist himself took the photograph of the realist sculpture showing a crowd in undulation between light and darkness, against the backdrop of modern, square-paned office facades in a Montreal plaza. I wonder what association between the sculpture and the topic of trust Sztompka may have intended: that trust is an ideal that may illuminate a human crowd, guiding, for example, post-communist societies along the way from autocracy to democracy? Alternatively, that trust is bound up with the general human condition of 'a serial movement back and forth between the depth of darkness and the beyond of light' (Edwards 1994: 170, with reference to Mason's unveiling speech, 25 June 1986)?

Having carefully read Sztompka's study, I would say that the first association prevails. The ideas on trust collected in the book combine into an eclectic model that is permeated by rational choice thinking, and slightly modified to allow for structuration theory and developmental psychology as reflexive constraints to enlightened human agency. Although Sztompka presents himself as a proponent of what he calls the culturalist turn in sociology, and stresses the need for 'trust culture', he does not explore the ontological conditions that are so powerfully captured in Mason's sculpture. Instead, his conception of culture remains rationalistic and it underplays the fundamental insight that certain peculiar aspects of human nature beyond the rational choice problematic may be the ones that make trust a meaningful concept in the first place. In other words, Sztompka subsumes trust under a fairly conventional theory, whereas he could have challenged and developed social theory with a phenomenology of trust.

However, I should not leap ahead to missed opportunities at this point. Many readers will find that the book provides an accessible, wide-ranging and useful account of trust research, written probably with a generalist rather than a specialist sociological audience in mind. In some way it is helpful that Sztompka uses professorial discretion in the range of literature that he considers relevant (not a bad choice anyway, see pp. 16-17) and devotes most of the book to his own ideas, rather than reviewing other authors in detail. Thus the reader can engage with the unfolding model, although an independent evaluation would require familiarity with alternative models.

The first chapter places the topic of trust in a wider intellectual context. First, the author observes a 'double paradigmatic shift' (p. 1) in sociology, in particular two turns towards soft variables: one from a focus on societies to a focus on social actors, and the other one within the sociology of action from utilitarian to humanistic orientations. With this came 'the ascendance of culture to the top of sociological concerns' (p. 3) rooted in a range of classic as well as more recent intellectual endeavours (from Durkheim to Sztompka himself). Notably, 'the current concern with trust is just one aspect of the culturalist turn in sociological theory' (p. 11), but one that can be identified as a core component of recent culturalist concepts. These introductory propositions are neither undisputed nor groundbreaking; they merely tell us very clearly the direction from which Sztompka is moving. He emphasizes duality and reflexivity in the relationship between culture (constraint) and agency (choice), but does so with a perceptible affinity for the latter, suggesting that trust has become an increasingly salient issue because individuals are actively required to face an ever more complex and uncertain (and in other ways difficult) world.

In my opinion, the second chapter, on the 'idea of trust', is the most insightful and crucial part of the book. The author begins by outlining the features of human action that are relevant for understanding trust. He notices a 'perennial epistemological gap' (p. 19): the condition of lacking knowledge, certainty and control regarding the bases and future consequences of our own and others' actions. I strongly support the suggestion that a theory of trust should respond to this epistemological (even ontological) problem. Yet, Sztompka moves on to narrow the scope of his model significantly by postulating the following definition: 'Trust is a bet about the future contingent actions of others' (p. 25). Active agency -- believing and committing -- is the human response to an uncertain future. So far so good, but the author subsequently underestimates the significance of the as if in the observation that to trust means to act as if the future was certain. To be sure, he stresses that trust is 'intimately related to risk' (p. 29). He also notices paradoxical elements: that trust is risky, but that it actually brackets the risk; that suspending risk in this way brings with it the additional risk of misplaced trust (see pp. 31-32). Still, actors are seen as trusting in a fundamentally rational way. They exert choice in the kind of commitment they make ('anticipatory's 'responsive', 'evocative' trust) and in the probability and scale of the risks taken. At the end of mostly quite complex ('all-in') estimates and calculations, it is possible to evaluate how prudent or imprudent it would be to invest trust in the interaction under consideration. Hence, we are conveniently in rational choice territory. Trust now becomes a controlled decision rather than a response to the impossibility of control.