ABSTRACT
The book concludes with propositions that reconceptualize trust in both the interpersonal and political senses. These propositions aim to keep trust grounded in the observable things that people do and say in relations with one another and in complex social systems. Trust is, after all, political, and it does makes sense to talk of a politics of trust, or of trust as a political factor. We need to be careful not to reify this factor, however, as if it were a force or a thing. A discourse of political trust can help us to comprehend many of the core problems of civic and political life. It is pertinent to the disruptive political events of recent times, and to the challenges facing liberal-democratic systems, provided we can loosen the assumptions built into opinion polls and game-theory and reconsider trust in a new descriptive and pragmatic frame.
