Creating trust by means of legislation - A conceptual analysis and critical discussion

Abstract

Social scientists from various disciplines have identified trust as an important feature of well-functioning and prosperous societies. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that creation of trust is a regulatory goal in several sectors of society, i.e. legislation is being used with the intention to create trust. In this article, I (first) conduct a conceptual analysis of the relationship between trust and legislation and (second) critically discuss trust creation by means of legislation. Trust is conceptualised in an abstract model stating that: A trusts B to do X if A believes that B has the competence to perform X and will do so out of benevolence towards A. With this understanding of trust, the main problem of creating trust by means of legislation is that control tends to crowd out trust (rather than create it), and legislation is a form of control. In order to deepen the analysis, the concept of trust is divided into two subcategories: personal trust and system trust. The former denotes trust in another social actor, e.g. a potential contractual partner, whereas the latter denotes trust in an abstract system, e.g. the legal system. With this understanding, the crowding out effect pertains to personal trust but not necessarily to system trust. However, increasing system trust does not automatically follow from decreasing personal trust. It is concluded that legislation is not a suitable regulatory technique for the creation of trust, especially not personal trust, but on the other hand the creation of trustworthy behaviour might be a feasible regulatory goal.