Trust, Distrust, and Mistrust in Multinational Democracies

Comparative Perspectives

Dimitrios Karmis, François Rocher, Dimitrios Karmis, François Rocher

• Publisher: McGill-Queen's University Press
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9780773553422
• eBook ISBN: 9780773554344
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Comparative Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The importance of research on the notion of trust has grown considerably in the social sciences over the last three decades. Much has been said about the decline of political trust in democracies and intense debates have occurred about the nature and complexity of the relationship between trust and democracy. Political trust is usually understood as trust in political institutions (including trust in political actors that inhabit the institutions), trust between citizens, and to a lesser extent, trust between groups. However, the literature on trust has given no special attention to the issue of trust between minority and majority nations in multinational democracies - countries that are not only multicultural but also constitutional associations containing two or more nations or peoples whose members claim to be self-governing and have the right of self-determination.

This volume, part of the work of the Groupe de recherche sur les sociétés plurinationales (GRSP), is a comparative study of trust, distrust, and mistrust in multinational democracies, centring on Canada, Belgium, Spain, and the United Kingdom. Beliefs, attitudes, practices, and relations of trust, distrust, and mistrust are studied as situated, interacting, and coexisting phenomena that change over time and space.

Contributors include Dario Castiglione (Exeter), Jérôme Couture (INRS-UCS), Kris Deschouwer (Vrije Universiteit Brussel), Jean Leclair (Montréal), Patti Tamara Lenard (Ottawa), Niels Morsink (Antwerp), Geneviève Nootens (Chicoutimi), Darren O’Toole (Ottawa), Alexandre Pelletier (Toronto), Réjean Pelletier (Laval), Philip Resnick (UBC), David Robichaud (Ottawa), Peter Russell (Toronto), Richard Simeon (Toronto), Dave Sinardet (Vrije Universiteit Brussel), and Jeremy Webber (Victoria).

Table of contents

• Cover
• Copyright
• Contents
• Tables and Figures
• INTRODUCTION The Language of Trust, Distrust, and Mistrust in Multinational Democracies
• PART ONE Theoretical Debates
• 1 Conceptions of Trust: From Social Mechanism to Normative Principle
• 2 Democracy, Trust, and National Identity
• 3 Trust: The Key to the Progressive’s Dilemma between Solidarity and Diversity?
• 4 Democratic Institutions and Representative Trust
• 5 Vigilance, Trust, and “Fine Risks” in the Minefield of Multinational Democracies
• PART TWO The Dynamics of Trust, Distrust, and Mistrust in Canada
• 6 The Conditional Nature of Trust in Canada’s Multinational Constitutional Politics
• 7 The Construction of Canada in Historical Perspective: Distrust as an Inherent Component of Constitutional Debates?
• 8 The Delayed (and Qualified) Victory of the Meech Lake Accord: The Role of Constitutional Reform in Undermining and Restoring Intercommunal Trust
• 9 Federalism as Rejection of Nationalist Monisms
• 10 Linguistic Groups and Civil Society: Trust, Cooperation, and Accommodation in Canadian Voluntary Associations
• PART THREE Comparative Perspectives
• 11 Through the Mirror of Contingency: Trust and Mistrust in Multinational States
• 12 Identity and Political Trust in Multinational Democracies: The Cases of Québec and Catalonia
• 13 Trust and Distrust in the Belgian Federation
• 14 Trust between Party Elites in Consociational Federations: The Case of Belgium
• Contributors
• Index