Familiarity Breeds Trust: Collective Action in a Policy Domain

Researchers are currently refining the concept and theory of trust to focus on identifying the bases of trust within specific domains. This paper examines the development of trust within the domain of agricultural water policy, where trust is a critical resource for solving collective action problems. The analysis uses data from a mail survey of farmers in agricultural water policy to integrate three theoretical frameworks: the conventional generalized trust perspective, Levi’s transaction cost theory of trust, and Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith’s Advocacy Coalition Framework. The results demonstrate that while there is a close relationship between the attitude of trust and beliefs about the behavior of policy actors, the dynamics of trust within policy domains should be understood within the context of institutional structures and competing political values. In the past decade, the concept of trust has becomea central topic of inquiry in political and manyother social sciences. Often discussed under the broader rubric of “social capital, ” trust is conceptual-ized as a critical factor for solving the numerous col-lective action problems faced by citizens in modern political economies (Coleman 1990; Fukuyama 1995; Hardin 2002; Putnam 2001). Trust is believed t