Trust, Faith and Calculativeness: A Theoretical Extension of O. Williamson's ‘Institutional Trust’
The Economics of Religion: Anthropological Approaches
ISBN: 978-1-78052-228-9, eISBN: 978-1-78052-229-6
Publication date: 12 December 2011
Abstract
This chapter aims to develop an institutionalist concept of faith based on Williamson's concept of ‘institutional trust’ and Coleman's contribution to ‘placement of trust’. As a starting point, it considers the social capital literature on trust from the perspective of institutional economics and economic anthropology. ‘Institutional faith’ posits as a normative state the inevitability of trust with regard to certain questions human beings cannot answer. This has a behaviour-channelling effect which makes, e.g. for institutional stability. The proposed concept is evaluated critically by contrasting it with T. Kuran's concept of ‘preference falsification’ in the Hindu caste system. Finally, the concept is challenged by today's Hindu fundamentalism and makes a differentiation between fundamentalism and institutional faith.
Citation
Seele, P. (2011), "Trust, Faith and Calculativeness: A Theoretical Extension of O. Williamson's ‘Institutional Trust’", Obadia, L. and Wood, D.C. (Ed.) The Economics of Religion: Anthropological Approaches (Research in Economic Anthropology, Vol. 31), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 3-21. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0190-1281(2011)0000031004
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2011, Emerald Group Publishing Limited