©2007 IAP Proof Copy 3 Trust and Distrust: Sociocultural Perspectives, pages 3–27 Copyright © 2007 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved. TRUST AND DISTRUST IN SOCIETY Ivana Marková, Per Linell, and Alex Gillespie Social scientific topics, just like other social phenomena, undergo changes of fashion and have their ups and downs. Nevertheless, fashions in social sciences—if by fashions we mean trends of the Zeitgeist—are hardly ever arbitrary switches of topics and theories. They reflect more general and more fundamental changes in society as well as in the sciences. Nonethe- less, when during a relatively brief period in the 1980s and 1990s, signifi- cant monographs and research articles on trust and distrust attracted attention in many spheres of life in European and North American social sciences, this did not pass without comments. The sudden proliferation of interest in trust/distrust was questioned; it became discussed not only by social scientists but also by professionals in politics, economics, ergonom- ics, and otherwise, and this, in turn, was reflected in the media and in pub- lic discourses. As this enlarged interest mainly concerned European American social sciences (e.g., Gambetta, 1988; Luhmann, 1979; Peyre- fitte, 1995; Seligman, 1997; Thuderoz, Mangematin, & Harrisson, 1999; Warren, 1999), some scholars saw its causes in the increase of individualism and its negative consequences in society. They referred to the growth of crime and violence, to litigations and lawsuits against professionals, and viewed these incidents as signs of danger threatening democracy. Others thought, however, that social, political, and economic relations have become too complex, and that the enlarged quantity of information and CHAPTER 1 Queries: Page nos. for Papousek & Papousek? IA397-Marková.book Page 3 Monday, July 16, 2007 9:47 PM