Institutionalized government stabilizes citizens’ inductive expectations, not strong trust

Evidence

As you can be trustworthy even though I do not know it and therefore might not trust you, so too an institution can be trustworthy even though its individual clients do not know it—even, perhaps, could not know it. In lieu of the knowledge that would make me judge a government official or agency to be trustworthy, I might have expectations that are rational merely in the sense that they extrapolate from current and past actions, as might be adequate for a sociological account of credible, inductive expectations. Merely institutionalizing government and the implementation of policies should lead to greater stability of citizens’ expectations. The vernacular claim of trust in government seems to be little more than such stable expectations. — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 720

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces the key distinction between strong trust and mere stable inductive expectations, which Hardin will name quasi trust immediately after.
• XREF: Connects to Luhmann’s reduction of trust to familiarity/expectation-stabilization, and to the reader’s Saramago point that institutional stability is what blindness destroys. — connects to: Institutional fit, not sincerity, makes political conduct feel natural. — Nina Eliasoph, Avoiding politics: how Americans…, 1277; A republic’s stability rests on assurance that all will respect shared rules. — Adelin-Costin Dumitru, Forging the Resistive Republic: Social…, 18; Responsive institutions require citizens virtuous enough to press new claims