Kaj Ilmonen SOCIAL CAPITAL AND TRUST IN FINLAND

The exceptionally deep economic crisis which hit Finland at the beginning of the 90s had fundamental and long-lasting consequences for the structure and functioning of Finnish society. A substantial part of many businesses in some industries and some regions, was either swept away or hit by cut-backs, downsizing and restructuring. These economic shocks affected not only firms but also non-profit organizations and the functioning of the public sector. Therefore, there emerged a need to find out whether these changes affected the social relationships called “social capital” that is based on trust; and that relationships have been considered to be fairly well established and stable in the Nordic countries (f. ex. Eurobarometer 46/ 1996, 42)

I will begin my review by defining social capital and explaining why it has become so popular in the 1990s that it could be regarded B with the AThird Sector@ B as a Awonder concept@ (Wunderbegriff), believed to be capable of solving at any rate, explaining, any current problem. Then I will say few words about Robert Putnam=s study on social capital and I will also consider the weaknesses in his frame of reference and concentrate on one of the central elements of social capital: trust. Finally, I will give a short description of trust in the Finnish context, and look at its variation between sex Finnish municipalities.

The concept and topicality of social capital

The concept of social capital ties in with the new interpretations now being made of the present-day changes in the visible environment. Though the concept has a multiphasic background, it has taken shape only recently. Almost magically, the concept seems to offer solutions to problems that arise when old social structures crumble. However, social capital is a tricky and complex concept, like so many other Apromising@ hybrid concepts. Typically it encompasses three elements. The first element includes a) social networks and the ways in which they are organized. They represent the formal side of the concept. Besides this, the concept has a substantial side that brings it close to the concept of institution in institutional economics (e.g. North, 1990). The networks are thought to hold together due to b) the trust that the members have in one another and c) the normative rules and reciprocal expectations connected with that trust (e.g. Putnam 1993, 167B176). A social network and the confidential

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relations connected to it are thought to provide capital or, as Pierre Bourdieu put it, a resource for its members that can be moved around by the members, either individually or together if need be (1986).

Social capital is not like economic capital, however, since it cannot be separated from its supporters and the relations that exist between them. In this respect social capital is not as easily movable as economic capital. Nor can it be invested, in the true sense of the word, to increase its value. Despite these Aflaws@ the concept of social capital attracts attention. Why is this? There are several reasons. I will only mention a few topical elements here. Without a doubt one of these is the strong comeback of economic liberalism in both economic and socio-political discourse in the 1980s. The reform of working life, and the diminishing economic leeway of the national state have both, in turn, paved the way for the return of liberalism. As part of the background to this development one can also see the processes described by the concept of post-industrial society B the erosion of traditional communities and social classes ands the consequent social philosophical discussions of exploring the characteristics of a good society (see Ilmonen, 1998). Many of these discussions date back to the fragmentation of feudal society, and are linked to names like Thomas Hobbes and John Locke.1

Robert Putnam and social capital

Thus there are several ways of thinking and a variety of social situations that have made the concept of social capital increasingly topical (see Ilmonen 2000). However, they cannot be unproblematically transformed into the notion of social capital or into a scientific discourse based on this. They must first be translated into scientific language. This usually presupposes a set of concepts based on pre-existing theoretical formulations, and research carried out using that set of concepts. Robert Putman=s work Democracy is significant in this respect.

Putnam=s basic question is what circumstances are best suited to support the creation of a strong representative (political) institution (1993, 6). To examine those factors, Putnam

1 It is interesting to note that during the economic liberalism of the 1980s and 1990s the same themes are topicalized as were brought up by John Locke, the central source of inspiration for liberalism, when he took a stance against a strong monarchy and state. He wanted to make sure that private ownership would have a legal position in relation to the state, and he nominated Apolitical society@, i.e. civil society, as a guarantee of this. By Apolitical society@ he meant the orderly part of civil society (Locke 1996, 117B119).

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compares Northern Italy to Southern Italy. This comparison is historical. According to it, Northern Italy as a civil society has for long been in many ways stronger or Amore civic@ than its Southern counterpart. This observation makes the comparison meaningful and leads Putnam to two general conclusions: 1) When civil society is strong, or Acivic@, the market functions better than it otherwise would (1993, 181). In this way he managed to confirm the tenet of institutional economics that the economy is not an island apart from other social activities but instead leans on existing social structures and institutional arrangements and on the trust created by them.

2) When civil society is strong, even the state functions better (98, 173, 181). So, Putnam proposes that social capital is necessary for the smooth functioning of both government policies and the economy.

These generalizations are Putnam=s answers to the politically loaded debate over the supremacy of either markets or hierarchies. According to him, neither functions well unless there is a third, Simmelian intermediary factor: a civilized civil society. The views cherished by neo-liberals and the so-called “real socialism”, which assume the antagonism of the market and the state are, therefore, false. Both must be fitted into civil society, and its nature over time will decide the form between the relationship between the market and the state will take. In other words, Putnam=s view is that it is exactly the high degree of civility in civil society that secures the smooth functioning of the market and the polis, since civility guarantees social order and the unhindered functioning of society. 2

In Putnam=s view, civic society is marked by the existence of social networks of reciprocity and trust. As an example he mentions the Apopular sociability@ that developed in 19th century France and that had become more common in Northern Italy, too, in the late 19th century. It was characterized by mutual aid organizations, trade organizations, credit institutions3 and the voluntary work institution (Aaiutarella@), etc. (1993, 139). These and other reciprocal social networks formed the welfare state of the time (ibid., 199). Their existence strengthened, in Putnam=s opinion, the mutual trust of the population. That, in turn, required not the feudal, hierarchical structures of oppression, but a strengthening of equality and common participation (ibid., 104 105). Both of these improve the moral preconditions for crossing family and other group barriers.

2 Putnam admits, naturally, that social order can be maintained even in uncivilized conditions characterized by strong hierarchical dependence and exploitation (1993, 180). 3 In mainland Europe foreign trade was already conducted through credit at the beginning of the first millenium. The word Acredit@ derives from the Latin Acredere@, which means to trust, to have faith.

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When social capital is in motion, it feeds on itself. The strengthening of social capital takes place, according to Putnam, mainly indirectly: First, a betrayal of trust increases the potential costs in individual transactions. Second, a social network sustains the existing norm of reciprocity. Third, its existence makes communication easier and improves the flow of information. Fourth, previous successful instances of cooperation, which strengthen the members= faith in the opportunities cooperation may bring them, accumulate in the networks (Putnam 1993, 173B174).

All in all, Putnam suggests that social capital is an emergent phenomenon that follows this pattern: social networks B norms of reciprocity B trust B social networks. This pattern as a whole defines a civilized community. Thus, according to Putnam, social capital does not solely support the economy and credible politics but is rather an extra-legal a counterpart of a social contract. It is based on legitimacy and morality rather than legal criteria. The concepts refer precisely to what Durkheim means when he discusses the non-contractual element in a contract (1990, 71, 255B257).

A critique of social capital and Putman

Putnam=s project is currently in political demand. It is connected to the tug-of-war between the neo-liberals and communitarians. Right after the publication of his book Democracy, Putnam took part in the debate and sided strongly with the communitarians (Favell 1998, 222). He stresses how fortunate those who live in a civilized community are (1993, 113). At the same time he frets about the considerable decay that has affected the social capital accumulated in American society over the past few decades (1995, 73). He believes that the current development will weaken the integration of American society on the whole. In clinging onto this belief Putnam brushes aside the Granovetter Hypothesis without a mention. The hypothesis postulates that it is not the disintegration of strong ties that as such matters very much in social integration. To the contrary, it is the existence of criss-crossing loose ties that is fundamental from the point of view of social integration.

Putnam does not deal with national political culture as such but he makes it clear that expanding the civilized community to the macro level would bring about a Agood@ (i.e. highly integrated) society. Here he returns to the ideas of Talcott Parsons and Émile Durkheim. They

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were convinced that a uniformity of norms and values forms the basis for the functioning of a liberal democracy. Sharing norms and values provides vitality for social capital and accelerates its accumulation. The accumulated social capital, in turn, helps overcome the constant threat posed by the individualistic pursuit of personal gain. This viewpoint includes an implicit normative emphasis. Putnam tries to negate Thomas Hobbes=s solution to the personal gain dilemma, just as communitarians do and their predecessors did. Social capital (or a civilized community) is an alternative to a strong state, a mechanism that balances the unrestrained pursuit of personal gain (Favell 1998, 219).

So, social capital encompasses B at least in the Putnamian usage of the term B strong normative assumptions and is in this respect a problematic concept. Further the multiple meanings included in the concept of social capital creates problems. Social networks, trust, and norms can be combined in many ways to bring about the desired outcome, a civilized community. However, the combining can also be done so in such a way that the end result is a closed network that oppresses at least some of its members. It may, among other things, prevent them from belonging to other networks. Thus, we should ask how we can distinguish between the various different combinations of the elements of social capital, and what consequences these combinations have on the macro level (Woolcock 1998, 158). It is by no means clear that a closed and oppressive network would nurture such activity as would support, for example, general social or economic policy, as Putnam seems to think.

Another problem is whether the concept of social capital is a medium or a message in interaction. To be precise, we must ask which of its elements are mediums and which are messages (Woolcock 1998, 156). It may be sensible to think that, like Bourdieu=s Afield@, a social network as such is mainly a tool for its members. But where does trust fit within social capital? On the one hand, trust is precisely the Amedium@ which binds the network together, but at the same time it is a message about the affinity between its members. One way of making sense of all this is to separate the different levels of trust analytically (Ilmonen et al. 1998, 46B47). When trust is based on rational reflection and knowledge about other peoples’ actions, it is best regarded as having a mainly instrumental value. When, on the other hand, it additionally has a strong emotional component through which it creates a shared identity, it constitutes a message about the medium or the content of that message.

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There are also other problems in Putnam’s way of dealing with the concept of social capital, but awing to the limitations of space I must leave them out here (but see Ilmonen 2001).

A solution to the conceptual problem?

One way of solving the conceptual problems connected with the concept of social capital is to approach the phenomenon from just one viewpoint. This would mean, roughly, that one would follow the idea of adaptive theorizing introduced by D. Leyder. Leyder suggests that there is a need for general theoretical concepts to guide research. Some of these concepts would function as core notions directing the concrete research process (1988, 116B125). This paper arrives at the same conclusion as Putnam. After all, he regards the special characteristics of social relations, and trust in particular, as the central attribute of social capital. In order to estimate its usefulness in this respect, its inherent characteristics should be defined. Here I will lean on D. Seligman=s excellent work The Problem of Trust.

Unlike Putnam, Seligman tries to understand trust within its historical framework. To this end Seligman distinguishes between trust in individuals and trust in institutions and abstract systems. He reserves the concept of trust solely for the former, and applies the concept of confidence to the latter (1997, 18; cf. Misztal 1996, 17). This difference is, however, a matter of arbitrary definition. After all, confidence is a kind of trust and is not to be distinguished completely from it. “Confidence is trust that has already been established or built” (Patterson 1999, 154).

Thus, we do not have to think, like Seligman, that trust of as existing as a distinct social mechanism. Even friendship, his prime example of a relation of trust, is based not only on trust but also on familiarity. Friends know each other, and this familiarity is an integral part of trust. In my view it can be justifiably assumed that even today relation of trust do not exist in a pure form, without any connections to outside social reality. In this respect, Seligman=s way of likening trust to an individual=s relationship with God is misleading. In the end, neither trust nor any other social mechanism comes about or can be sustained in isolation from other social mechanisms and practices.4

4 F. Tonkiss and A. Passey, among others, demonstrate how charity organisations have always wavered between two Alogics@. The first has to do with charity and the second with performing well. In other words, wavering has taken place between the original cause of the existence of the charities and their functional efficiency. Charity connects to the faith that organizations really fill their original mission irrespective of who the needy are. Good

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The critique of Seligman could be taken further with the forceful argument that he, while underlining the difference between trust between people and confidence felt towards institutions, he fails to see the similarities between the two. Discerning the similarities is easiest when concentrating on the content of trust rather than on its object. Then it can be observed that both trust between people and confidence felt towards institutions refer to the same thing: the future and its predictability. Trust is invested in people and things precisely because they have features that make the future controllable or at least intelligible. Just as a friend=s familiarity is a reason to trust his or her word, an institutional practice (such as a comprehensive incomes policy agreement) guarantees that those who are parties to it can trust each other. It is the time perspective itself, rather than the object, that makes trust a central mechanism of social activity. As J.M. Barbalet suggests, pride refers to an actor=s past, whereas trust refers to the future. Although Barbalet uses the term Aconfidence@ instead of Atrust@, this applies equally to the notion of trust. It is a social mechanism through which the possible can become present reality (1998, 86B87), thereby diminishing the complexity of the future (Luhman 1979, 112).

In the end, it is plausible to think that trust B if seen in the Seligmanian way B functions only in an institutionally stable environment. Trust is always stronger when it is backed up on a personal level by institutional modes of action that are relatively stable and familiar to the members of a given society. If they are missing, then (and only then) trust will become a rare natural resource and a clan-based institutional system, Aamoral familism@ (Banfield), will replace it.

As I have already said, however, it is wise to keep trust and confidence analytically separate. Trust refers to situation where contacts between people are direct and personal. This sort of trust is “given”, because of it is seldom doubted, but it could also be called following P. Sztompka “primary” trust (1999, 70-86). By contrast, confidence describes situations where the relations between actors are indirect (or systemic) and impersonal. If we apply these two dimensions, direct and indirect, and personal and impersonal, in order to make the analytical performance, in turn, is linked to the confidence that the organisations do their duties well. These two expectations are intertwined and not necessarily conflicting. However, the closer to the modern times researchers have come, the more pressure has been put on the organisations to manage the latter duties at the cost of the former (1999, 261, 272). What is true of charity organisations appears to apply to many other voluntary organisations too, such as consumer cooperatives and the trade union movement (Ilmonen 1986;

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differences clear to ourselves, we will notice out that there exist two additional types of trust relations (Patterson 1999, 154-157). When personal contacts are involved, but they are Picture 1. Types of trust Relationship Direct Indirect personal A. “given” or “primary” trust B. “train of trust” impersonal C. “humanistic” trust D. confidence

indirect, we have what Coleman calls a “train of trust” (1990, 180-188). Such things are trust networks. Someone is trusted just because of he or she happens to belong to a network, although we do not know him or her. The fourth alternative is a situation where we are in a relatively stable contact with people that we, in spite of this, do not know. We trust them, because we believe them to share with us the same sort of attributes that we ourselves have, for example “Finnishness”. (Patterson calls this type of trust “humanistic”, ibid.156). Often this is not enough. As C. Offe claims it demands more than one or two common attributes before trust spreads out to include people unknown to us. According to him one prerequisite for this is that we suppose the other people involved inhabit the same kind of moral universe as we ourselves do (1999, 72-74). The stranger they are to us, the more likely we are to suppose that they are not carrying out one or other of their obligations; and so they do not earn our trust.

In the following, I will, first, look at the “condition” of trust in general in Finland in the light of the theoretical framework described above. However, I focus mostly on A, C and D types on trust. Then, following Putnam I will examine the variation in the types of trust to be found in between different parts of Finland. The purpose of this, however, is not Putnamian. It is rather related to the deep recession that Finnish society experienced in the beginning of the 90s. It is now recovering – the growth rate of Finnish economy has been very high since the recession – but this does not concern all Finnish municipalities equally. And it is well known that trust is strongly related to socio-economic fluctuations (Inglehart 1999; Patterson 1999).

Ilmonen & Kevätsalo 1995).

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Sample and the description of chosen municipalities

In order to establish the “condition” of trust in Finland, I and my research team have conducted a survey in six municipalities at the end of 1999. The sample was 1800. The response rate varied between municipalities (from 39% to 55%)5, but it was 46% overall. It could have been better, but the sample well the composition of inhabitants in the chosen municipalities mirror fairly. In addition, a survey of the whole adult population of Finlandwas carried out. The sample was 500 and the response rate was 45%. Response rates were even in this case fairly low, but in comparison to the percentage of returns achieved by for example The Finnish Statistical Bureau it is still reasonable. Moreover, the sample represented the adult population of Finland relatively well.

The sample included two municipalities, Paimio and Dragsfjärd, on the southwest coast of Finland. Their size varied, in terms of population from 3700 (Dragsfjärd) to nearly 10 000 (Paimio). The population was, however, slowly decreasing in both of them. Paimio is the Finnish and Dragsfjärd the Swedish-speaking (or bilingual) municipality. This was known to be an important difference because of according to previous research, the Swedish-speaking population on the West cost of Finland is more trusting than Finnish-speaking people although they live very close to each other (Hyyppä & Mäki 1999). Paimio is a fairly industrialized municipality. It did not suffer very much from recession in the early 90s. While the unemployment rate in whole the Finland was 15.4% in 1995, it was about 10% in Paimio in 1995 and it dropped to 7% in 1997. 27% of households consisted of retired folk and the average income there was the highest in our sample, 180 000 Fmk (28846$ according to the currency rate at the end of 2000) in 1997. Politically it was clearly bound to the Right, since only one third of the population supported leftist parties.

People in Dragsfjärd, on the other hand, were mostly in favor of the Swedish party, but 45% voted for the Left. The unemployment rate was 10% in 1995, much lower than in the country as a whole, but contrary to the general trend it increased to 12% in 1997. 44% of households consisted of retired households and the medium income was relatively low in 1997: 152 000 Fmk (24038$). On the other hand, Dragsfjärd is a popular summer resort. Many member families of the Finnish Swedish-speaking upper class have their summer houses there. This

5 ) Dragsfjärd 40%, Paimio 43%, Jämsä 53%, Keuruu 55%, Inari 39% and Salla 47%.

9 very likely fuels Dragsfjärd’s economy, and is probably the main reason for the relatively low unemployment rate in Dragsfjärd in 1995.

The sample also included two municipalities, Jämsä and Keuruu, from the middle part of Finland. The population of Jämsä is about 13 000. The size has been quite a stable through the 90s. The unemployment rate has been relatively high, 19% in 1995 and 17.5% in 1997, but it is still decreasing. In spite of an unemployment rate that is still clearly above average, Jämsä is doing fairly well in a comparison to the rest of Finland. Although the recession hit it very badly, it also recovered itself fairly quickly, thanks to its strong industrial foundation in the paper and pulp industry. At the moment, it even employs people from neighboring municipalities (Menestys kasaantuu, aluet erilaistuvat 1999, 79). The proportion of retired households is relatively high (33%) and the average income is fairly high in the Finnish context, 168 000 Fmk (26923$). Politically Jämsä is under the influence of the Right. Although Jämsä is one of the industrial regions in Finland, it has a bourgeois majority. The Left has only 45% seats on the municipal council.

Keuruu has about 12 000 inhabitants, but it is slowly losing people, and according to the prognoses it will lose some more in the near future. On the other hand, the population grows seasonally, because there are a lot of summer cottages in the rural district of Keuruu. The proportion of retired households is very high (38%) and the average income is 150 000 Fmk (24038$). The unemployment rate is quite high (19%) and it has stayed at this level through the 90s. Most of those employed work in the public and private service sector, and the percentage of industrial employment is about 20%. 4% of employment is outside the Keuruu administrative area. Further, Keuruu has a majority of middle-class residents, but the Left has 46% of seats on the communal council.

The remaining two municipalities in the sample are located in North-East Finland. One of these, Inari, has about 7700 inhabitants. It slightly lost population at the end of the 90s, but on the other hand, it is one of the most popular winter sport resorts in Finland. The population may increase during the March-May period to tree times its normal size. Most of the people in the municipality work in the private service sector (72%). Only 11% of employment is in industry. The unemployment rate was still very high in 1997, at 29%. Young people in particular suffer from unemployment (43% of people under 25 are unemployed) and the municipality is, therefore, supported by the State. The average income is still relatively high,

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162 000 Fmk (25961$), thanks to the strong service sector, but it is subject to substantial seasonal variation. Politically Inari is clearly bound to the Right, but it also has special features. A sort of fundamental religious movement that is common to the whole of Lapland and that is bound to the Center Party (the former peasant party) in Finland has for some years past established a stronghold in Inari.

Salla is the other Lapland municipality in the sample. It has about 5600 inhabitants and it has lost population throughout the 90s. That is because people do not have good opportunities for employment there. It is the poorest of the municipalities in the sample, and it lives mostly on the support of the state. The unemployment rate in the municipality is still extraordinarily high, 34% (people under 25 42%), and the average income was only 146 000 Fmk (23397$) in 1997. So much as 23% worked in the primary sector, compared to 1.6% in the country as a whole,10% worked in industry and 62% in public and private services. Salla is also a winter sport resort, but it is much less popular than Inari.

Trust in different parts of Finland

I will start by reporting the results of our survey on “given” trust. In American surveys this has usually been approached by asking the question “Can people be trusted?” or by proposition that “Formerly people trusted each other more than they do today”. We applied only the latter formulation in our survey, although it does not say much about the level of trust in contemporary Finnish society.

According to table 1., most Finns think that nowadays people do not trust each other as much as they did in former times, but there seems to be some variation between different parts of Finland concerning this question:

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Table 1. “Given” trust in six municipalities in Finland

Drags-fjärd Paimio Jämsä Keuruu Inari Salla Other

Agree 81 88 89 88 83 84 83

Don’t know 12 8 7 7 8 13 11

7 2 4 5 7 2 5 Disagree

(Pearson chi square 0.3) The differences are not statistically significant, but they are still as expected. On the Swedish- speaking coast, the least number agree with the claim that trust has declined; while most respondents in the sample belonging to the industrialized and affluent Finnish-speaking municipalities agree with this claim. This is contrary to the American finding that the poorest parts of the country show the least trust. The Finnish result might, however, be complicated by issues that are related to social class. Trust and distrust are clearly class bound phenomena. Although they might not belong to the poorest families, working class people are most distrustful, and Paimio and Jämsä have the largest working class population in our sample municipalities. The finding might also be due to the expectations that people have of their future. People in traditional working class communities have probably had the strongest expectations of a relatively safe future. This prospect has, however, been shaken by new trends in working life, and when recession hit the working class communities, their members’ expectations did not take into account the rapid changes taking place within the traditional industries.

In the research, “given” trust was assessed from one angle only. It was also approached by asking “How much people trusted different groups of people”. This question was, however, not only measured “given” trust, but also “humanistic” trust, since in the form given, social groups varied according to their social and cultural proximity to respondents.

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Table 2. How much does one trust the following persons/groups and municipalities (Alternative: much%)

Drags- Paimio Jämsä Keuru Inari Salla All Other Chi Fjärd u Family 100 97 100 98 99 100 100 96 0.02 Friends 97 96 99 97 96 93 94 91 0.34 Neighbours 86 84 85 91 77 80 72 64 0.08 Work mates 73 78 78 81 87 71 66 67 0.42

School mates 78 74 87 82 81 82 52 50 0.32 Foremen 78 74 87 82 81 82 55 57 0.35 Unknown Finns 27 30 26 39 34 18 18 18 0.03 Unknown 17 9 9 12 15 6 7 6 0.29 foreigners

Table 2 is very illuminating. As expected social nearness is fundamental matters of trust. The closer a person or social group is to Ego, the more “given” a trust seems to be. Most trusted are family members, then friends, foremen and work mates. Direct relationship, high visibility and familiarity probably best explains this sort of trust (Sztompka 1999, 81). These factors help to make the actions of the Other predictable, and him/her in that sense trustworthy (see also Misztal 1996, 97, 107-108). The more distant a person or social group is to Ego, the less one can know about the Other and, therefore, less predictable he or she is. The risk of being deceived grows, and it even becomes rational not to trust. It looks, however, as if the quarter of all Finns are ready to take this risk concerning unknown Finns. Least trusted are not only socially but also culturally unknown foreigners. This varies, however, from one municipality to another, although only a few differences are statistically significant. On the bilingual coast, in Dragsjärd, there seems, as expected, to be the least distrust of foreigners, but the same also seems to be the case among the Finnish-speaking Inari respondents. Maybe this is because it is a popular winter sport and hiking resort, and our Inari respondents are used to tourists. That may also explain why Inari inhabitants seem to be among those who trust unknown Finns most. The very same explanation might go for the inhabitants of Keuruu, where almost 40% of the respondents trust in unknown Finns.

Because social and cultural proximity seems to be so important a factor in trust, it may also play an important role in generalizing trust. Social and cultural nearness form a framework that strengthens confidence in the Other. It cannot, however, alone solve the problem of

13 misplaced trust. It can probably be fairly easily overcome when people are in face-to-face relationships. Not all those who share the same cultural and social origin, however, can be in direct contact with each other. Thus, the question of the mechanisms that generalize trust is still partly open. How can this question be solved? One well-known suggestion has been that voluntary associations may have such a generalizing role (Putnam 1993), but it is unclear why this should be so. It must be recalled that Putnam starts his reasoning from voluntary associations and also ends with them. It is understandable that the links from voluntary associations to norms of reciprocity strengthen trust within a voluntary association. But why, for instance, specific norms of reciprocity should spill out beyond the limits of these associations, is a crucial question that must still be answered (Cohen 1999, 220). One hint as to how this question might be solved comes from the Nordic experience. It shows that when there exist universal norms of reciprocity and solidarity it is likely that trust increases. This comes close to Offe’s earlier mentioned idea that a presumed common moral universe plays a substantial role in supporting generalized trust (Offe 1999). If people think that this is missing, it is very probable that they distrust or are at least suspicious of the Other. One way to check this is to see how much Ego is ready to trust his or her own nationality in comparison to other nationalities i.e., to those who might have another moral-cultural background from that of the Finns.

In order to find this out in a Finnish context, an indirect measure was developed, which asked respondents “to imagine that they were sitting on a very crowded sunny beach and that they wanted to take a swim. Would they ask a stranger to watch their things, if he or she was of the following nationality or background”. They were then given the list of different social groups that is shown in the table 3.

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Table 3. Trust in different nationalities (without hesitation + with small hesitation%) Drags- Paimio Jämsä Keuru Inari Salla All Other chi Fjärd u Finnish speaking Finns 71 65 66 76 65 67 60 62 0.40 Swedish speaking Finns 71 54 56 63 52 50 46 52 0.02 Gypsies 14 4 10 11 8 5 7 9 0.20 Saame (Finnish) 54 53 50 64 63 58 43 48 0.30 Russian speaking Finns or 26 22 25 29 21 17 17 21 0.45 people living in Russia with a Finnish background Russians 21 7 9 14 13 10 10 9 0.09 Swedes 63 31 42 43 36 40 32 36 0.00 Estonians 26 14 21 21 17 20 15 18 0.48

The table strongly supports Szompka’s claim that “people tend to trust others who are similar to them and to distrust those who are dissimilar from them” (1999, 80). It thus repeats the observation made above that social and cultural proximity is an important background factor of trust, but it does not explain everything, especially concerning distrust. There are no clear criteria for social and cultural distance. This is something that is culturally constructed. Traditional thought forms, personal experiences, but especially the media play a decisive role in setting up such criteria. The media are a strong force in influencing a historically fluctuating ethos. For the time being, Finns trust Swedes much more than Russians or Estonians, although like Swedes, the latter are also citizens of countries bordering Finland; and although Finns have many social and cultural, not to speak of economic interaction with all of them. But these things do not count for so much when the media almost daily feature the Russian mafia, and criminality both in Russia and Estonia as headline news and when even many Finns have had personal experience of such criminality.

Table 3. confirms also the well-known fact that, although trust in Ego’s countrymen and women is not universal, it is very high in the smaller countries and in Northern Europe. According to the Eurobarometer from 1996 Finns are the most trusting in their countrymen and women, while Italy has the lowest score (41-42). The table also provides some qualifications to this finding. Not all Finns are equally trusted by Finns. The table shows that Finns still trust their fellow citizens a lot, but this trust varies according to the ethnic origin: after the Finnish-speaking Finns the Swedish-speaking Finns are trusted the most, while gypsies are the least trusted. They were even less trusted than other nationalities such as Russians and the Estonians. This is probably due to the stereotype common among Finns of gypsies as theaves, sellers of illegal alcohol and asocial (Grönfors 1973).

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Table 3 is very interesting in one more respect. Specifically, there seems to exist a contradiction between it and Table 2, where most respondents announced that they do not trust unknown Finns. The one table shows that there exists generalized trust among Finns while the other indicates the contrary. How is this contradictory result to be explained? My guess would be that not even “generalized” trust is so general as the literature leads us to suppose (see, for example, Warren 1999). How wide we are willing to spread our trust is always somehow context bound. When there is no alternative left than to trust unknown people, we prefer to trust those who are at least in some ways similar to us. But at the same time, when familiar people are available also we trust them rather than anyone else.

Table 3 also indicates that trust in different kind of Finns varies between different parts of Finland, although most of the differences are not statistically significant. In the bilingual Dragsfjärd our respondents indicated trust as much in Swedish as in Finnish-speaking Finns. They also trusted Swedes much more in comparison with Paimio, that is geographically close to Dragsfjärd. In Paimio inhabitants have the least trust in Swedes. Jämsä comes pretty close to Paimio in its relationship to Swedes. This is probably related to the fact that both Paimio and Jämsä have a large industrial working class. Its members have traditionally been suspicious of both Swedes and Swedish-speaking Finns, while language differences formerly have also signaled class differences. The Swedish-speaking upper class has always been very small, but it has exercised strong grip on many Finnish factories, especially in small towns like Paimio and Jämsä. This, however, cannot be the whole explanation, since in the least industrialized Lapland, people are even less trusting of Swedish-speaking Finns than elsewhere.

To deepen the analysis I wanted to check the coherence of the Finnish moral frame work by locating trust in varying geographical contexts in Finland. Because “trust is often relative to particular contexts and ranges of action” (Govier 1997, 6), it was supposed that unknown people are not trusted equally everywhere in Finland. Respondents were asked to imagine that they were travelling around Finland, and were about to take a break in a coffee bar and were obliged to leave their luggage for a while where it was clearly visible to a stranger. They were then asked how much did they think that they could trust in strangers in different parts of Finland:

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Table 4. Trust in unknown people in different parts of Finland (municipalities %) Lap- Middle South- Middle Kareli Helsin Middle Åland West Noth- land -Fin West -East a - -West Fin West Fin Fin ki Fin Fin Much 56 43 30 34 32 9 29 25 28 40 Can’t 17 23 31 30 31 20 32 34 35 27 say Little 21 26 30 27 29 62 31 33 29 26

It can be seen from Table 4 that Finns are the most trusting when they are on a trip in Lapland, but they also feel that they can safely leave their luggage among strangers both in the middle and the northwest regions of Finland. Respondents have the least trust in unknown people in Helsinki. That result is probably an indication of a more general than only a Finnish feature. People suspect strangers in great cities. It is, however, remarkable that about a third of respondents cannot say whether they trust unknown people or not. As P. Bourdieu states, this can be interpreted as a sign that respondents do not feel the question is relevant (1985). In other words, the given context was probably not clearly enough stated. Or it might be that a third of the respondents were in any case indifferent to the matter.

Although the question the respondents were given did not work in the expected way, it is still interesting to compare the six municipalities in our sample. The variation between them seems to be remarkable, although again, not all the differences were statistically significant.

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Table 5. Trust in unknown people in differrent parts of Finland and municipalities %

Dragsfjärd Paimio Jämsä Keuruu Inari Salla Other Chi In Lapland 70 72 62 64 85 86 50 0.00 In Middle- 65 61 61 66 64 58 42 0.63 Fin In South- 67 52 43 46 50 42 35 0.04 West Fin In Middle- 67 58 52 46 58 60 42 0.15 East Fin In Karelia 65 52 52 49 55 47 38 0.43 In Helsinki 38 12 11 10 16 1 14 0.00 In Middle- 63 57 49 48 44 34 35 0.02 West Fin In Åland 69 44 41 37 39 24 31 0.00 In West Fin 64 54 45 49 46 35 35 0.06 In Noth- 70 63 55 61 61 57 41 0.47 West Fin

As could be expected, Table 5 shows that inhabitants in different parts of Finland trust unknown people more if they come from the same part of Finland. This shows once again that trust increases according to the “proximity” premise and to the same imagined background. This can also be seen about respondents’ view on Åland, the large Finnish island between Finland and Sweden. The Swedish speaking respondents in Dragsfjärd are very trusting on unfamiliar people in Swedish speaking Åland, but the farther away from Åland respondents are, the less they trust unknown persons in Åland. It is also woth noting that among the Dragsfjärd respondents seem to trust trust strangers more than respondents elsewhere, which is again a sign of the more trusting culture that exists among Swedish-speaking than Finnish- speaking Finns.

Summary

The concept of social capital is a very complicated hybrid concept, that is not easy to measure by empirical research. In this paper I have decided to stick only to one element of social

18 capital, trust, which has been considered as cornerstone of the concept. However, there exist many kinds of trust, both direct and indirect, and personal and impersonal. All of them should be taken into consideration, if social capital or at least trust is tp be explored adequately. The empirical part of the paper, however, concentrates mostly on personal and direct trust (“given” trust) and on direct, but impersonal trust (“humanistic” trust) in the six Finnish municipalities. They were chosen from different parts of Finland, because they have suffered to varying extents from the recession of the early 90s, and because international research has shown that economic fluctuations influence the level of trust that people show towards each other. However, there did not emerge any systematic differences between municipalities. That too is the central result of research recently published by the Finnish Statistical Bureau (2000).

If we ignore geographical differences the results show that Finns think that people in Finland trusted each other more in former times than they do today. However, trust is still fairly high in Finnish society, but it varies very much among Finnish people. It is notable that social and cultural proximity is one of the most important elements of trust. Familiar and close persons are trusted more than those that are in some respect strangers. But strangeness is naturally a relative and context bound feature. Finns do trust unknown Finns abroad, but they do not trust them in all situations in Finland. Further, not all unknown Finns are trusted equally. Finns trust most Finnish and Swedish-speaking Finns. Finnish gypsies are the least trusted which indicates that old stereotypes of gypsies have not ceased to exist. Neither do Finns trust strangers equally everywhere in Finland. In Lapland, middle Finland and the northeast region of Finland, unfamiliar people are more trusted than elsewhere. In Helsinki, in the capital of Finland, unknown people are trusted least. That is, however, the case elsewhere in the Western world. Usually people are not trusted in great cities.

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