Globalization: Civilizing or destructive? An empirical test of the international determinants of generalized trust

Abstract

Does globalization encourage and facilitate the development of generalized trust, or does it, on the contrary, foster mutual suspicion and distrust? This question preoccupied intellectual elites during the early phases of expansion of world markets, and it has become once again relevant in the context of contemporary globalization. This article proposes a sociological redefinition of this question by distinguishing between different aspects of globalization (economic competition and cultural embeddedness in the world polity) and specifying how those aspects affect trust. Using hierarchical models with individual and cross-national data from the World Values Survey and other sources on 41 countries for the 2005–2008 period, the article finds empirical support for the propositions that globalized competition decreases generalized trust in the countries most exposed to it, while competitiveness in prestigious cultural activities (such as scientific production) increases generalized trust.