Catalogue Search | MBRL
Are you sure you want to remove the book from the shelf?
{{itemTitle}}
249
result(s) for
"Eric Uslaner"
Sort by:
Segregation and mistrust : diversity, isolation, and social cohesion
\"Eric M. Uslaner examines the theoretical and measurement differences between segregation and diversity and summarizes results on how integrated neighborhoods with diverse social networks increase trust in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Sweden, and Australia\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
Corruption, Inequality, and the Rule of Law
Corruption flouts rules of fairness and gives some people advantages that others don't have. Corruption is persistent; there is little evidence that countries can escape the curse of corruption easily - or at all. Instead of focusing on institutional reform, in this book Eric M. Uslaner suggests that the roots of corruption lie in economic and legal inequality, low levels of generalized trust (which are not readily changed), and poor policy choices (which may be more likely to change). Economic inequality provides a fertile breeding ground for corruption, which, in turn, leads to further inequalities. Just as corruption is persistent, inequality and trust do not change much over time, according to Uslaner's cross-national aggregate analyses. He argues that high inequality leads to low trust and high corruption, and then to more inequality - an inequality trap - and identifies direct linkages between inequality and trust in surveys of the mass public and elites in transition countries.
eBook
All for All: Equality, Corruption, and Social Trust
The importance of social trust has become widely accepted in the social sciences. A number of explanations have been put forward for the stark variation in social trust among countries. Among these, participation in voluntary associations received most attention. Yet there is scant evidence that participation can lead to trust. In this article, the authors examine a variable that has not gotten the attention it deserves in the discussion about the sources of generalized trust, namely, equality. They conceptualize equality along two dimensions: economic equality and equality of opportunity. The omission of both these dimensions of equality in the social capital literature is peculiar for several reasons. First, it is obvious that the countries that score highest on social trust also rank highest on economic equality, namely, the Nordic countries, the Netherlands, and Canada. Second, these countries have put a lot of effort in creating equality of opportunity, not least in regard to their policies for public education, health care, labor market opportunities, and (more recently) gender equality. The argument for increasing social trust by reducing inequality has largely been ignored in the policy debates about social trust. Social capital research has to a large extent been used by several governments and policy organizations to send a message to people that the bad things in their society are caused by too little volunteering. The policy implications that follow from the authors' research is that the low levels of trust and social capital that plague many countries are caused by too little government action to reduce inequality. However, many countries with low levels of social trust and social capital may be stuck in what is known as a social trap. The logic of such a situation is the following. Social trust will not increase because massive social inequality prevails, but the public policies that could remedy this situation cannot be established precisely because there is a genuine lack of trust. This lack of trust concerns both “other people” and the government institutions that are needed to implement universal policies.
Journal Article
The Historical Roots of Corruption: State Building, Economic Inequality, and Mass Education
We show a link between levels of mass education in 1870 and corruption levels in 2010 for seventy-eight countries that remains strong when controlling for change in the level of education, GDP/ capita, and democracy. A model for the causal mechanism between universal education and control
of corruption is presented. Early introduction of universal education is linked to levels of economic equality and to efforts to increase state capacity. First, societies with more equal education gave citizens more opportunities and power for opposing corruption. Secondly, the need for increased
state capacity was a strong motivation for the introduction of universal education in many countries. Strong states provided more education to their publics and such states were more common where economic disparities were initially smaller.
Journal Article
Where You Stand Depends upon Where Your Grandparents Sat: The Inheritability of Generalized Trust
Generalized trust is a stable value that is transmitted from parents to children. Do its roots go back further in time? Using a person's ethnic heritage (where their grandparents came from) and the proportion of people of different ethnic backgrounds in a state, I ask whether your own ethnic background matters more than whom you live among. People whose grandparents came to the United States from countries that have high levels of trust (Nordics, and the British) tend to have higher levels of generalized trust (using the General Social Survey from 1972 to 1996). People living in states with high German or British populations (but not Nordic populations) are also more trusting (using state-level census data). Italians, Latinos, and African Americans tend to have lower levels of trust, but it is not clear that country of origin can account for these negative results. Overall, there are effects for both culture (where your grandparents came from) and experience (which groups you live among), but the impact of ethnic heritage seems stronger.
Journal Article
Trust and corruption revisited: how and why trust and corruption shape each other
Graeff and Svendsen argue that low trust leads to corruption but corruption does not lower trust. I challenge this argument as well as their critique of Uslaner. I present evidence to show that there is a reciprocal relationship between trust and corruption.
Journal Article
Corruption, fairness, and inequality
This study examines two prominent arguments underlying perceptions of corruption – Uslaner's \"inequality trap\" thesis, according to which high inequality leads to low trust and thus greater corruption ad infinitum – and the unfairness theory. The perception of corruption was measured across 31 countries via the 2006 Role of Government module of the International Social Survey Program (ISSP). The findings indicate that, in line with the \"inequality trap\" thesis, countries with higher levels of income inequality evince a higher degree of perception of corruption and, in correspondence with the unfairness thesis, that people who believe that public officials treat them fairly are less likely to perceive corruption to exist. Combining these two explanations, we employed a multilevel model to examine whether the negative correlation between fair treatment and perceptions of corruption vary in accordance with the level of country income inequality. The results indicate that the link between these variables is weaker in less equal countries than in more egalitarian countries. In unequal countries, fairness does not matter quite so much for corruption perceptions.
Journal Article
“Bands of Others”? Attitudes toward Muslims in Contemporary American Society
The obvious explanation for the unpopularity of Muslims in contemporary American society centers on the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. However, we contend that feelings about Muslims are shaped primarily by a general sense of affect for groups that fall outside of the cultural mainstream and the personality and value orientations typically associated with such affect. Thus, the current structure of Muslim evaluations should not differ much from that before the 9/11 attacks. Moreover, Muslims may be distinctive in that, unlike most minority groups, they are associated with both positively viewed racial and religious minority groups and with negatively viewed cultural minority groups. Analyses of data from the 2004 American National Election Study and other surveys conducted between 2000 and 2007 strongly support our argument.
Journal Article
Segregation, mistrust and minorities
Generalized trust is a value that leads to many positive outcomes for a society. It is faith in people you don't know who are likely to be different from yourself. Yet, several people, most notably Robert Putnam, now argue that trust is lower when we are surrounded by people who are different from ourselves. I challenge this view and argue that residential segregation rather than diversity leads to lower levels of trust. Integrated and diverse neighborhoods will lead to higher levels of trust, but mainly if people also have diverse social networks. I examine the theoretical and measurement differences between segregation and diversity and summarize results on how integrated neighborhoods with diverse social networks increase trust in the US and the UK.
Journal Article