Small close communities run on norms, while urban networks run on trust

Evidence

If you and I are part of a fairly rich web of interactions in a relatively small, close-knit community, we might imagine that we would therefore grow up to be relatively trustworthy. Although the data do not yield definitive conclusions, some studies suggest that small, close communities are governed more by norms than by trust relationships (Amato 1993; Fischer 1982; see also Cook and Hardin 2000). In urban contexts, people find their ways into multiple networks for varied purposes, such as work, recreation, close friendship, and so forth. In one of these networks, they are likely to develop ongoing relationships that enable them to develop trust in one another with respect to the particular issues around which that network has formed. If I violate your trust with respect to the issues at stake in our network, your sanction is simply to withdraw from further interactions with me, and if my reputation gets around, I might even be dropped from the entire network. — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 820

Categorization

• XREF: Pairs with Hardin’s own claim in chapter earlier that a continuing relationship is a forfeitable bond; the urban-network withdrawal sanction is precisely the observable constraint on opportunism the reader’s thesis invokes. — connects to: Dense civic networks enable trust, reciprocity and collective action. — Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone: America’s Declining…, 17
• CANDY: The counterintuitive fact that small close communities depend less on trust than on norms is a neat conversation point.