Trust and cooperation are at the heart of the two most important approaches to comparative politics - rational choice and political culture. Yet we know little about trust's relationship to political institutions. This book sets out a rationalist theory of how institutions - and in particular informal institutions - can affect trust without reducing it to fully determinate expectations. It then shows how this theory can be applied to comparative political economy, and in particular to explaining inter-firm cooperation in industrial districts, geographical areas of intense small firm collaboration. The book compares trust and cooperation in two prominent districts in the literature, one in Emilia Romagna, Italy, and the other in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It also sets out and applies a theory of how national informal institutions may change as a result of changes in global markets, and shows how similar mechanisms may explain persistent distrust too among Sicilian Mafiosi.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Review
"Farrell's The Political Economy of Trust is a tour de force. His book takes us through the burgeoning literature on social trust, social capital, institutions, and networks. Farrell has done us a service by clearly distinguishing among these terms, carefully carving out a distinct analytical space for each concept, and identifying their respective explanatory purchase. One of his main goals is to show that the concept of trust provides a deeper understanding of cooperation than institutions by themselves. He succeeds brilliantly.
"Farrell's masterful treatment of the literatures on social capital, culture, and rational choice approaches to institutions provides us with a more complete picture of the causes and consequences of institutions. His case studies of firms in Emilia Romagna, Italy and Baden-Wuerttemberg, Germany, along with his final chapter on the Mafia in Sicily provide the ideal material to illustrate his complex ideas and demonstrate their empirical grounding."
-James A. Caporaso, University of Washington
"Henry Farrell's important book is a crucial contribution to the literature on social trust, and will be particularly influential among those seeking to understand the roots of coordinated market arrangements in advanced political economies. Boldly bridging the divide between rational-choice microfoundations and institutionalist macro-theorizing, while also bringing in culturalist perspectives, Farrell shows how trust can be grounded in informal institutions that were created for quite different reasons than the production or sustenance of cooperation. In doing so, he provides a powerful new way of understanding the role of trust in social, political, and economic life."
-Jacob S. Hacker, Yale University
"Farrell's masterful treatment of the literatures on social capital, culture, and rational choice approaches to institutions provides us with a more complete picture of the causes and consequences of institutions. His case studies of firms in Emilia Romagna, Italy and Baden-Wuerttemberg, Germany, along with his final chapter on the Mafia in Sicily provide the ideal material to illustrate his complex ideas and demonstrate their empirical grounding."
-James A. Caporaso, University of Washington
"Henry Farrell's important book is a crucial contribution to the literature on social trust, and will be particularly influential among those seeking to understand the roots of coordinated market arrangements in advanced political economies. Boldly bridging the divide between rational-choice microfoundations and institutionalist macro-theorizing, while also bringing in culturalist perspectives, Farrell shows how trust can be grounded in informal institutions that were created for quite different reasons than the production or sustenance of cooperation. In doing so, he provides a powerful new way of understanding the role of trust in social, political, and economic life."
-Jacob S. Hacker, Yale University
Book Description
This book sets out a rationalist theory of how institutions - and in particular informal institutions - can affect trust without reducing it to fully determinate expectations. It then shows how this theory can be applied to comparative political economy, and in particular to explaining inter-firm cooperation in industrial districts, geographical areas of intense small firm collaboration.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
12 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Don't judge a book it's cover, literally.,
By Rice Delman (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Political Economy of Trust: Institutions, Interests, and Inter-Firm Cooperation in Italy and Germany (Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics) (Hardcover)
Why are you two idiots giving two stars based on the istock watermark?You embody what's wrong with the ratings system. You see something on Photoshop Disasters and rush to Amazon to be the first moron to put in your two cents. I have the original, and there's no watermark (big surprise). In fact, it's not even the same cover. It's similar but not identical. It's not the most interesting read but it was required for college.
27 of 48 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Trust, with the iStock watermark?,
This review is from: The Political Economy of Trust: Institutions, Interests, and Inter-Firm Cooperation in Italy and Germany (Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics) (Hardcover)
The cover image looks as if the image was taken from the iStock image database directly from the web.Is this an example of how trust is broken or negligence by the cover designer?
7 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Hmmm....,
By
This review is from: The Political Economy of Trust: Institutions, Interests, and Inter-Firm Cooperation in Italy and Germany (Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics) (Hardcover)
I agree it bodes very poorly for the book that it has the iStock logo, though in all likelihood it was not theft. The more probable scenario is that the art department sent the mock-up version from before final approval and purchase of the art. As a note, it is legal and accepted practice to use a "comp" image in the design phase. It is also highly embarrassing for such an image to go public.Of course, the additional "copyrighted material" watermark from the publisher adds a pinch of irony. All that said, even without the watermark, the cover is ugly and poorly designed. Then again, my mother taught me not to judge a book by its cover.
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