Torsello, Davide - Pappová, Melinda: Social Networks in Movement. Time, interaction and interethnic spaces in Central Eastern Europe - Nostra Tempora 8. (Somorja-Dunaszerdahely, 2003)

Time and social networks

Managing instability 71

pie and institutions: as a general rule, the more frequent the interaction the higher the trust. People distinguish three distinct clusters of trustworthiness. The first cluster, composed of family, relatives, friends, neighbours and distant relatives (all average levels above 3), is the closest to people, the one to which trust relations can be ascribed as vital components of the everyday social life. People have enduring experiences of interaction with members of these categories, therefore trust is continuously re-vitalised by everyday encounters. The second group relates to more or less “neutral“ items (trust level between 2 and 3) which include villagers and local officials, but excludes the cooperative. People have fewer occasions for everyday interaction with local officers, producing less positive levels of trust. The category of "villagers" is more problematic. One informant commented: “If I have to judge them as a whole, without giving people names and faces, I’d say that I don’t trust them" (Antal, b. 1926). There is a relatively low degree of trust towards “villagers" when this group is taken as not containing relatives and friends. The last group (politicians, the state and the ELI), is the most distant and abstract for villagers. The lowest scores in term of generalized trust suggest that villagers feel that abstract entities with which they have very little interaction are far less trustworthy. The state is the most indicative of this trend since respondents seemingly expressed a negative vision of its governing bodies (political parties and legal institutions).4

The second point is that, as the question about trustworthiness after 1989 suggests, there is a general tendency towards low rather than high levels of trust. This is also supported by the fact that, if value 3 is taken as the middle level between 0 and 5, 9 categories out of 14 had trust levels falling below average.

Thirdly, among institutions people share higher degrees of trust towards those with which the village has a stronger identification. The comparison between the levels for the cooperative and local officials on the one hand, and the church and social and cultural clubs on the other gives an idea of this distinction. Villagers do not express high levels of trust vis-à-vis