Interpersonal trust is a central concept in social capital theory and in the discussion of civic culture. Explanatory models of support for democracy, membership in associations, and civic involvement commonly include measures of interpersonal trust. Although central to the theoretical debate over civil society and democracy, this concept has been measured in very simplistic ways. The conflicting and contradictory results of recent studies may well stem from the lack of reliability in measurements of trust. This study, based on a unique data set that contains different measures of interpersonal trust and uses factor analysis, concludes that there are two dimensions of trust, one of which has been consistently ignored by previous studies.
Interpersonal Trust; Social Capital; Civic Culture