Trust in a Polarized Age

Trust in a Polarized Age PDF Author: Kevin Vallier
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0190887222
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 325

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Book Description
Americans today don't trust each other and their institutions as much as they once did, fueling destructive ideological conflicts and hardened partisanship. In Trust in a Polarized Age, political philosopher Kevin Vallier argues that to build social trust and reduce polarization, we must strengthen liberal democratic institutions--high-quality governance, procedural fairness, markets, social welfare programs, freedom of association, and democracy. Theseinstitutions not only create trust, they do so justly, by recognizing and respecting our basic rights.

Trust in a Polarized Age

Trust in a Polarized Age PDF Author: Kevin Vallier
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0190887222
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 325

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Book Description
Americans today don't trust each other and their institutions as much as they once did, fueling destructive ideological conflicts and hardened partisanship. In Trust in a Polarized Age, political philosopher Kevin Vallier argues that to build social trust and reduce polarization, we must strengthen liberal democratic institutions--high-quality governance, procedural fairness, markets, social welfare programs, freedom of association, and democracy. Theseinstitutions not only create trust, they do so justly, by recognizing and respecting our basic rights.

Trust in a Polarized Age

Trust in a Polarized Age PDF Author: Kevin Vallier
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190887249
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
Americans today don't trust each other and their institutions as much as they once did. The collapse of social and political trust has arguably fueled our increasingly ferocious ideological conflicts and hardened partisanship. But is today's decline in trust inevitable or avoidable? Are we caught in a downward spiral that must end in institutional decay or even civil war, or can we restore trust through our shared social institutions? In Trust in a Polarized Age, political philosopher Kevin Vallier offers a powerful counter-narrative to the prevailing sense of hopelessness that dogs the American political landscape. In an unapologetic defense of liberalism that synthesizes political philosophy and empirical trust research, Vallier restores faith in our power to reduce polarization and rebuild social and political trust. The solution is to strengthen liberal democratic political and economic institutions--high-quality governance, procedural fairness, markets, social welfare programs, freedom of association, and democracy. These institutions not only create trust, they do so justly, by recognizing and respecting our basic human rights. Liberal institutions have safeguarded trust through the most tumultuous periods of our history. If we heed the arguments and data in this book, trust could return.

Social Trust

Social Trust PDF Author: Kevin Vallier
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000381587
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
With increasingly divergent views and commitments, and an all-or-nothing mindset in political life, it can seem hard to sustain the level of trust in other members of our society necessary to ensure our most basic institutions work. This book features interdisciplinary perspectives on social trust. The contributors address four main topics related to social trust. The first topic is empirical and formal work on norms and institutional trust, especially the relationships between trust and human behaviour. The second topic concerns trust in particular institutions, notably the legal system, scientific community, and law enforcement. Third, the contributors address challenges posed by diversity and oppression in maintaining social trust. Finally, they discuss different forms of trust and social trust. Social Trust will be of interest to researchers in philosophy, political science, economics, law, psychology, and sociology.

The Oxford Handbook of Social and Political Trust

The Oxford Handbook of Social and Political Trust PDF Author: Eric M. Uslaner
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190274816
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 752

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Book Description
This volume explores the foundations of trust, and whether social and political trust have common roots. Contributions by noted scholars examine how we measure trust, the cultural and social psychological roots of trust, the foundations of political trust, and how trust concerns the law, the economy, elections, international relations, corruption, and cooperation, among myriad societal factors. The rich assortment of essays on these themes addresses questions such as: How does national identity shape trust, and how does trust form in developing countries and in new democracies? Are minority groups less trusting than the dominant group in a society? Do immigrants adapt to the trust levels of their host countries? Does group interaction build trust? Does the welfare state promote trust and, in turn, does trust lead to greater well-being and to better health outcomes? The Oxford Handbook of Social and Political Trust considers these and other questions of critical importance for current scholarly investigations of trust.

Bridge Builders

Bridge Builders PDF Author: Nathan Bomey
Publisher: Polity
ISBN: 9781509545933
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
In these turbulent times, defined by ideological chasms, clashes over social justice, and a pandemic intersecting with misinformation, Americans seem hopelessly divided along fault lines of politics, race, religion, class, and culture. Yet not everyone is accepting the status quo. In Bridge Builders: Bringing People Together in a Polarized Age, journalist Nathan Bomey paints a forensic portrait of Americans who are spanning gaping divides between people of difference. From clergy fighting racism in Charlottesville to a former Republican congressman engaging conservatives on climate change and Appalachian journalists restoring social trust with the public, these countercultural leaders all believe in the power of forging lasting connections to bring about profound change. Though the blueprints for political, social, and cultural bridges vary widely, bridge builders have much in common—and we have much to learn from them. In this book, Bomey dissects the transformational ways in which bridge builders are combatting polarization by pursuing reconciliation, rejecting misinformation, and rethinking the principle of compromise.

Why We're Polarized

Why We're Polarized PDF Author: Ezra Klein
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1476700397
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
ONE OF BARACK OBAMA’S FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2022 One of Bill Gates’s “5 books to read this summer,” this New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller shows us that America’s political system isn’t broken. The truth is scarier: it’s working exactly as designed. In this “superbly researched” (The Washington Post) and timely book, journalist Ezra Klein reveals how that system is polarizing us—and how we are polarizing it—with disastrous results. “The American political system—which includes everyone from voters to journalists to the president—is full of rational actors making rational decisions given the incentives they face,” writes political analyst Ezra Klein. “We are a collection of functional parts whose efforts combine into a dysfunctional whole.” “A thoughtful, clear and persuasive analysis” (The New York Times Book Review), Why We’re Polarized reveals the structural and psychological forces behind America’s descent into division and dysfunction. Neither a polemic nor a lament, this book offers a clear framework for understanding everything from Trump’s rise to the Democratic Party’s leftward shift to the politicization of everyday culture. America is polarized, first and foremost, by identity. Everyone engaged in American politics is engaged, at some level, in identity politics. Over the past fifty years in America, our partisan identities have merged with our racial, religious, geographic, ideological, and cultural identities. These merged identities have attained a weight that is breaking much in our politics and tearing at the bonds that hold this country together. Klein shows how and why American politics polarized around identity in the 20th century, and what that polarization did to the way we see the world and one another. And he traces the feedback loops between polarized political identities and polarized political institutions that are driving our system toward crisis. “Well worth reading” (New York magazine), this is an “eye-opening” (O, The Oprah Magazine) book that will change how you look at politics—and perhaps at yourself.

Must Politics Be War?

Must Politics Be War? PDF Author: Kevin Vallier
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0190632836
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
Americans today are far less likely to trust their institutions, and each other, than in decades past. This collapse in social and political trust arguably fuels our increasingly ferocious ideological conflicts and hardened partisanship. Many believe that our previously high levels of trust and bipartisanship were a pleasant anomaly and that we now live under the historic norm. Seen this way, politics itself is nothing more than a power struggle between groups with irreconcilable aims: contemporary American politics is war because political life as such is war. Must Politics Be War? argues that our shared liberal democratic institutions have the unique capacity to sustain social and political trust between diverse persons. In succinct, convincing prose, Kevin Vallier argues that constitutional rights and democratic governance prevent any one ideology or faith from dominating all others, thereby protecting each person's freedom to live according to her values and principles. Illiberal arrangements, where one group's ideology or faith reigns, turn those who disagree into unwilling subversives, persons with little reason to trust their regime or to be trustworthy in obeying it. Liberal arrangements, in contrast, incentivize trust and trustworthiness because they allow people with diverse and divergent ends to act with conviction. Those with opposing viewpoints become trustworthy because they can obey the rules of their society without acting against their ideals. Therefore, as Vallier illuminates, a liberal society is one at moral peace with a politics that is not war.

The Upswing

The Upswing PDF Author: Robert D. Putnam
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
ISBN: 198212914X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 480

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Book Description
From the author of Bowling Alone and Our Kids, a “sweeping yet remarkably accessible” (The Wall Street Journal) analysis that “offers superb, often counterintuitive insights” (The New York Times) to demonstrate how we have gone from an individualistic “I” society to a more communitarian “We” society and then back again, and how we can learn from that experience to become a stronger, more unified nation. Deep and accelerating inequality; unprecedented political polarization; vitriolic public discourse; a fraying social fabric; public and private narcissism—Americans today seem to agree on only one thing: This is the worst of times. But we’ve been here before. During the Gilded Age of the late 1800s, America was highly individualistic, starkly unequal, fiercely polarized, and deeply fragmented, just as it is today. However as the twentieth century opened, America became—slowly, unevenly, but steadily—more egalitarian, more cooperative, more generous; a society on the upswing, more focused on our responsibilities to one another and less focused on our narrower self-interest. Sometime during the 1960s, however, these trends reversed, leaving us in today’s disarray. In a sweeping overview of more than a century of history, drawing on his inimitable combination of statistical analysis and storytelling, Robert Putnam analyzes a remarkable confluence of trends that brought us from an “I” society to a “We” society and then back again. He draws inspiring lessons for our time from an earlier era, when a dedicated group of reformers righted the ship, putting us on a path to becoming a society once again based on community. Engaging, revelatory, and timely, this is Putnam’s most ambitious work yet, a fitting capstone to a brilliant career.

News Grazers

News Grazers PDF Author: Richard Forgette
Publisher: CQ Press
ISBN: 1483320871
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
How has growing media choice transformed the way we gather news? News Grazers: Media, Politics, and Trust in an Information Age offers you an integration of the emerging effects that cable news, online news, and social media have had on American politics. Author Richard Forgette, an expert on the U.S. Congress and public policy, draws on direct experimental research to argue that the diffusion of media outlets and media technologies has resulted in an increasingly fragmented and distracted news audience. This unprecedented level of media choice is not only altering who accesses the news and how they do it; more important, it is changing the news itself. With chapters on commentary news, partisan news, breaking news, and fake news, News Grazers gives you the tools you need to critically analyze the ever-shifting media landscape. Special attention is also paid to the effects of the media and political trust on the 2016 election. Key Features: Coverage of the media’s effects on the 2016 election encourages you to discuss the election while taking into account the broader theoretical concerns about changing news consumption habits and declining political trust. The chapter on partisan news helps you understand the impact of politically polarized news audiences. The chapter on fake news offers you current examples of the political impact of this phenomenon. Examples of the ways in which Americans increasingly have become news grazers show you how growing media choice has transformed how we gather news and is resulting in an increasingly distracted news audience. Discussions about the development of commentary news show how producers have combined drama, opinion, immediacy, and entertainment with straight news content—allowing you to see the impact that this form of news has on the public’s trust in Congress and the media.

Building Cultures of Trust

Building Cultures of Trust PDF Author: Martin E. Marty
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
ISBN: 0802865461
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 201

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Book Description
In Building Cultures of Trust Martin Marty proposes ways to improve the conditions for trust at what might be called the "grassroots" level. He suggests that it makes a difference if citizens put energy into inventing, developing, and encouraging "cultures of trust" in all areas of life--families, schools, neighborhoods, workplaces, and churches. Marty acknowledges that the reality of human nature tends toward trust-breaking, not trust-building--all the more reason, he argues, to develop strategies to bring about improvements incrementally, one small step at a time. --from publisher description