Abstract
The aim of this paper is to empirically investigate the relationship between institutions at the national level and actors’ consciousness/behavior. First, my statistical analysis reveals that, there has existed not only synchronic diversity of institutional configurations among advanced and Asian economies, but also diachronic diversity, even under the spread of market mechanisms in different domains in advanced countries since the 1980s. Next, I focus on the relationship between institutions and the consciousness/behavior of actors. While standard economic theory supposes that actors act solely based on self-interest, other theories argue that actors act based on multiple motives, the varieties and mixture of which could lead to the establishment of different institutions. In line with the arguments of these theories, I concentrate on the concept of trust to represent a motive other than self-interest, and empirically examine the diversity of the structure of actors’ consciousness related to trust (trust structure) and its transformation over time. What my analysis reveals is as follows. Different types of trust structures exhibited by statistical analyses have a certain degree of similarity to types of institutional configurations, which can imply that they are complementary. Furthermore, the analysis of the transformation of trust structures since the 1980s reveals three paths of transformation, which appear to be divergent rather than convergent. These paths correspond to some extent to the transformation patterns of institutional configurations. However, the correspondence between the two is not rigid, which would imply that the institution-actor linkage is a loosely coupled relation.
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Notes
Regarding the typology of advanced capitalism, three types of capitalism are identified: the group of Anglo Saxon countries (liberal advanced capitalism), that of Nordic countries and continental Europe (welfare capitalism), and that of Southern Europe and France (mixed European capitalism).
For the list of variables, see Appendix in Harada (2016).
The following countries are included: Australia (AUS), Austria (AUT), Belgium (BEL), Canada (CAN), Denmark (DNK), Finland (FIN), France (FRA), Germany (DEU), Greece (GRC), Ireland (IRL), Italy (ITA), Japan (JPN), Korea (KOR), the Netherlands (NLD), New Zealand (NZL), Norway (NOR), Portugal (PRT), Spain (ESP), Sweden (SWE), Switzerland (CHE), the United Kingdom (GBR), and the United States of America (USA).
This theory indicates that an individual constructs a committed relationship with a specific partner (personalized trust) in a situation where social uncertainty is high and such a relationship should create opportunity costs. On the other hand, when the opportunity costs are high, it is advantageous to go beyond the committed relationship. Thus, when social uncertainty and opportunity costs are high, it is better to mostly trust others whoever they are (generalized trust), and to establish cooperative relationships with unspecified parties. If marketization creates various possibilities of trade leading to the increase in opportunity costs, it can be said that the process of marketization may enhance generalized trust.
Here, I consider that institutionalized trust is quite similar to generalized trust, but it should be noted that Witt and Redding (2013) use the former notion with the emphasis on the aspects related to social system. They argue that it is the existence of a system that underpins institutionalized trust, which can be divided into elements such as system control, system trust, and systematic ethics (Witt and Redding 2013, p. 289). This implies that the notion of institutionalized trust has the potential to include both the direct and indirect relationships on trust described below. In that sense, the closer examination of the concept of trust, including the difference between institutionalized trust and generalized trust, is an issue that needs to be further developed.
The selected economies are as follows: China (CHN), Taiwan (TWN), Hong Kong (HKG), India (IND), Indonesia (IDN), Japan (JPN), Korea (KOR), Malaysia (MYS), Thailand (THA), Australia (AUS), Canada (CAN), Finland (FIN), France (FRA), Germany (GER), Italy (ITA), the Netherlands (NLD), New Zealand (NZL), Norway (NOR), Spain (SPN), Sweden (SWE), Switzerland (SWZ), the United Kingdom (GBR), and the United States (USA).
See more details in Harada (2018).
According to Table 2, one can find more apparent similarities between the types of institutional configurations and types resulted from the analysis of indirect relationships on trust or the entire configuration of trust than those between institutional diversity and direct relationships of trust. It would imply that the diversity of trust structures depends more on indirect relationships through confidence in institutions/organizations that mediate interpersonal relationships than on direct relationships between individuals.
Furthermore, there is an interesting difference among countries with regard to the evaluation of competition. The positive evaluation of competition increases in countries such as Japan, Korea with late liberalization of markets on the one hand, it doesn’t increase in early liberalized countries (even its decrease is observed in Finland and Sweden) on the other. That would imply that the liberalization of markets could produce negative effect on an economy in the long term, causing that individuals in the economy negatively evaluate the competition.
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Appendix
Appendix
List of variables used for analysis of transformation of trust structure
Domain | Description | Code |
|---|---|---|
General | Most people can be trusted | A165 |
Personal | Important in life: Family | A001 |
Important in life: Friends | A002 | |
Active/Inactive membership of labour unions | A101 | |
Active/Inactive membership of political party | A102 | |
Active/Inactive membership of environmental organization | A103 | |
Active/Inactive membership of professional organization | A104 | |
Active/Inactive membership of charitable/humanitarian organization | A105 | |
Confidence | Confidence: Churches | E069_01 |
Confidence: Armed Forces | E069_02 | |
Confidence: The Press | E069_04 | |
Confidence: Labour Unions | E069_05 | |
Confidence: The Police | E069_06 | |
Confidence: Parliament | E069_07 | |
Confidence: The Civil Services | E069_08 | |
Confidence: Television | E069_10 | |
Confidence: The Government | E069_11 | |
Confidence: The Political Parties | E069_12 | |
Confidence: Major Companies | E069_13 | |
Confidence: The Environmental Protection Movement | E069_14 | |
Confidence: The Women’s Movement | E069_15 | |
Confidence: Justice System/Courts | E069_17 | |
Inequality | Fairness: One secretary is paid more | C059 |
Income equality | E035 | |
Justifiable | Justifiable: claiming government benefits | F114 |
Justifiable: avoiding a fare on public transport | F115 | |
Justifiable: cheating on taxes | F116 | |
Justifiable: someone accepting a bribe | F117 | |
Market | Private vs state ownership of business | E036 |
Competition good or harmful | E039 | |
Politics | Important in life: Politics | A004 |
Interest in politics | E023 | |
Political action: signing a petition | E025 | |
Political action: joining in boycotts | E026 | |
Political action: attending lawful/peaceful demonstrations | E027 | |
Political action: joining unofficial strikes | E028 | |
Self positioning in political scale | E033 | |
Government responsibility | E037 | |
Political system: Having a strong leader | E114 | |
Political system: Having experts make decisions | E115 | |
Political system: Having the army rule | E116 | |
Political system: Having a democratic political system | E117 | |
Religion | Important in life: Religion | A006 |
Active/Inactive membership of church or religious organization | A098 | |
How often do you attend religious services | F028 | |
Religious person | F034 | |
How important is God in your life | F063 | |
Work | Important in life: Work | A005 |
Hard work brings success | E040 |
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Harada, Y. Diversity and transformation of institutional configurations and trust structures. Evolut Inst Econ Rev 16, 479–501 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40844-019-00142-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40844-019-00142-4