Wednesday, October 15, 2014

my note on the concept of trust

Societies which lives in countries located in the Eastern sphere of the world are often associated with being collectivist, meaning that people living within these societies highly valued collectivity in their daily life.  Of many characteristics, individuals living in collectivist societies are usually family oriented, have many informal associations, have strong group spirit (gotong royong), etc. Some of us are indeed familiar with these characteristics as we are living in Indonesia.

Now, as a nation, Indonesia has been one of the emerging Economies in Asia (with 5,7 % rate of GDP growth in 2014 according to Asian Development Bank). Though our nations economy is still slowly growing, still it is achievement and would be an impossible without good cooperation between government, private sectors, and of course the Indonesian public. The last determinant will have major role in the process, the public. Some study results concluded that economic growth is associated with public trust, where societies with high level of trust mostly lived in countries with stable and promising economic growth (i.e Scandinavian and West European countries). 

What forms trust? in individual scale, trust will grow when one finds other individual is reliable, indicated by integrity, effort, leadership, etc. With trust, individuals are able cooperate and collaborate in achieving common goals. Moreover, people with similar interest and goals tends to be easier in trusting each other. In wider scale, the term used is generalized trust, which is often referring to bunch of individuals trusts as well as trust towards government, officials, etc. Clean and good governance is often associated by high degree of trust by its people as individual well being and wealth are being emphasized. People respect the government of the consistency and integrity in empowering the nation. This balance therefore promotes stable economic growth, civic engagement, civil political involvement, etc.

How does the trend of trusting applies in Indonesia? given its characteristics of collectivist nation, in general it is not difficult for people to engage with each other, despite given the nation's multicultural background. Assuming that trust should form naturally, generalized trust in collectivist country such as Indonesia should also be high. However, the hypothesis referring to the positive association between generalized trust and wealth, particularly, does not seem to generally apply. At some point and levels the mechanism of trust works does promote cooperation between individuals, but in some other there are just too many challenges to be faced such as corruptive government, propaganda, weak law implementation, etc, which hinders generalized trust to grow, thus slowing nation's development. Despite, potentials and resources towards nation's betterment are there already. Hopefully to make breakthrough in the near future.


Reference: Uslaner, Eric M and Mitchel J.Brown. 2003. Inequality, Trust, and Civic Engagement. American Politics Research, Sage Publication

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