Mechanisms for controlling impersonal trust themselves create new opportunities for abuse

Evidence

How do societies control trust relationships that are not embedded in structures of personal relations? This paper discusses the guardians of impersonal trust and discovers that, in the quest for agent fidelity, they create new problems. The resulting collection of procedural norms, structural constraints, entry restrictions, policing mechanisms, social-control specialists, and insurance-like arrangements increases the opportunities for abuse while it encourages less acceptable trustee performance. Moreover, this system sometimes leads people to throw good “money” after bad; they protect trust and respond to its failures by conferring even more trust. The paper explores the sources and consequences of the paradox that the guardians of trust are themselves trustees. — Shapiro, Susan P., The Social Control of Impersonal Trust, 1

Categorization

• SEED: An essay angle: the ‘guardians are themselves trustees’ paradox — how every layer of institutional trust-protection (auditors, regulators, watchdogs) is itself a trust relationship vulnerable to the very failures it polices.
• XREF: connects to: Controlling trust creates new opportunities for abuse in an inflationary spiral. — Shapiro, Susan P., The Social Control of Impersonal Trust, 145; The very mechanisms that enable trust also enable its abuse. — Shapiro, Susan P., The Social Control of Impersonal Trust, 13; The same features enabling trust also enable agent abuse. — Shapiro, Susan P., The Social Control of Impersonal Trust, 33 (+7 more)

Related

• Controlling trust creates new opportunities for abuse in an inflationary spiral. (similarity 0.92)
• The very mechanisms that enable trust also enable its abuse. (similarity 0.92)
• Guardians of trust are themselves positioned to abuse the trust placed in them. (similarity 0.88)
• The same features enabling trust also enable agent abuse. (similarity 0.88)
• The institutions that police trust are themselves trustees subject to the same agency problems. (similarity 0.87)
• Third-party trust guardians create new opportunities for exploitation. (similarity 0.86)
• Social-control remedies reproduce the structural vulnerabilities they target. (similarity 0.86)
• Escalating trust guardianship distorts the original agency purpose (similarity 0.86)
• The same factors enabling agency relationships create the opportunity for agent abuse. (similarity 0.86)
• Even honest guardians may not actually deliver the protection principals assume. (similarity 0.85)
• Controlling trust institutions increases dissatisfaction with their offerings. (similarity 0.85)
• Institutional trust guardians offer advance protection against future agent misconduct. (similarity 0.84)
• Trust institutions vary dramatically in the guardianship they receive (similarity 0.84)
• Impersonal trust emerges where principals lose direct power to regulate agents. (similarity 0.84)
• Guardians of trust are themselves trustees requiring ever-higher-order oversight (similarity 0.83)

Broader Connections

• The very mechanisms that enable trust also enable its abuse. #corroborates (0.95) — Shapiro, Susan P., The Social Control of Impersonal Trust, 13
• Controlling trust creates new opportunities for abuse in an inflationary spiral. #expands (0.85) — Shapiro, Susan P., The Social Control of Impersonal Trust, 145