Tag Archives: trust

Civic Engagement and Trust among Immigrants in Iceland

01/03/2026New article (double blind peer review)Acculturation, Civic culture, Immigrants, Participation, Voter turnout, inclusion, trustBirgir Guðmundsson & Grétar Þór Eyþórsson

Introduction

The composition of the Icelandic population has undergone a considerable transformation in a relatively short period of time. A medley of different cultural influences brought about by an increased number of immigrants has coloured the traditionally monolithic and culturally homogeneous Icelandic society. In early January 2025, immigrants constituted some 18,9 per cent of the total population, and their number had been rising considerably over the previous two decades, their number being some 7,4 per cent of the total population in 2012. The largest number of immigrants reside in the capital area in Iceland and represent 67,7 per cent of all immigrants. However, the proportion of immigrants among the population in different regions of the country is considerable, about 33 per cent in the South -West peninsula (Suðurnes) and some 24,5 per cent in the Westfjords (Vestfirðir) (Statistics Iceland, 2025). In this paper, we aim to establish how these massive demographic changes impact the civic culture in Iceland. We assess, with the help of specifically designed indices constructed based on empirical data, the extent to which immigrants in Iceland have become part of the civic culture upon which the Icelandic democratic society rests. As far as we know, this is the first time empirical – numerical criteria have been applied to the civic engagement of immigrants in Iceland.

The definition of immigrants follows the one used by Statistics Iceland and defines an immigrant as a person who was born abroad and has both parents and grandparents born abroad (Statistics Iceland, 2018). Immigrants in Iceland come from all over the world, although the largest single group comes from Poland (Statistics Iceland, 2025). Thus, they bring with them a variety of new ideas and cultural traditions, some of which are highly visible such as restaurants and culinary cultures, while other ideas might be more hidden such as their attitudes towards the role of government or civic engagement.

Politics and civic culture in Iceland

Political divisions in Iceland have traditionally revolved around socio-economic issues and cultural or religious cleavages have been notably absent. For an extended period of time, the Evangelical Lutheran National Church has been relatively uncontested and religious doctrines or divisions have never constituted a real political division. Other religious congregations have been more or less absent, and the value system of a tolerant Scandinavian national church tradition has dominated society. Typically, though, as the Church has lost ground among segments of the public in the past few decades this values system has gradually taken on a more secularized nature.

Historically, the present party system dates back to the period from 1916-1930 when the four main types of parties were formed in Iceland. These parties all have ideological counterparts in the European political spectrum. They consist of a Conservative Party (Independence Party), a Centre party (Progressive Party), a Social Democratic Party (Alliance) and a Left Socialist Party (Left Green Movement). The four party types have maintained a strong position, receiving for extended periods of time more than 90 percent of the votes cast. Until 1967 their share was more that 95 percent but after a temporary drop in 1971 the four-party share fell below the 90 percent limit in the 1980s and 1990s. After the restructuring of the left in 1999, the four-party system as a whole has received some 80-85 percent of the votes. Simultaneously, since the 1980s electoral volatility has been increasing and some 1/3 of the electorate has changed parties between elections since the 1990s (Harðarson, 2008; Harðarson & Helgason, 2024). There was, however, a dramatic change after the financial collapse in 2008. In the elections of 2009, the four-parties jointly received some 90 percent of the votes but in 2013 this number was down to 74.9 percent, and in the 2016 and 2017 elections the number had fallen to the lower 60 percent (Statistics Iceland, n.d.). The economic meltdown in the autumn of 2008 dramatically affected political trust, and in particular, trust in politicians. General social trust and faith in institutional structures, which has traditionally been fairly high, remained more intact. Political trust collapsed with the economy but did not recover at the same rate as the economy, and it is only now, in the early 2020s, that political trust is reaching similar levels as before the crash (Vilhelmsdóttir & Kristinsson, 2018; Gallup 2021). A certain level of turmoil has characterised the political landscape since the 2013 parliamentary elections with a fragmentation of the party system and weak and unstable government coalitions (Vilhelmsdóttir & Kristinsson, 2018; Guðmundsson 2021; Harðarson & Helgason, 2024). This fragmentation and political volatility are, however, only partly a reflection of new cleavages and divisions in society. Rather, old divisions and factions that had been somewhat internally concealed within the four parties have surfaced and developed into new alliances, not least because of a completely changed political communication system born out of the advent of digital media and communication platforms (Guðmundsson, 2021). Although issues of a moral and culturally liberal nature have become somewhat more visible in the public discussion, it can be suggested that political divisions in Iceland by and large still unfold along a socio-economic dimension as has been the case throughout the 20th century and these are marked by the relatively homogeneous composition of the people with respect to race, culture and religion (Harðarson, 2008; Þórisdóttir, 2012). However, having said that, this traditional left-right division has been complicated by a secondary intersecting cleavage of a semi-nationalist or patriotic vs. international cooperation dimension. This dimension should be considered in light of the relatively recent establishment of Iceland as an independent republic in 1944, towards the end of the Second World War. A focus on nationality and patriotic values can be seen to have triggered an important cleavage in the latter part of the 20th century, particularly after Iceland joined NATO in 1949 and a defence agreement was concluded with the US in 1951, establishing a permanent US military base in Keflavík. Indeed, there was a wide consensus on certain patriotic values, symbolized by the Icelandic poet Snorri Hjartarson, who spoke of the true and only trinity of “land, nation and language” that had been passed on from generation to generation (Hjartarson, 1952). The question was how this trinity of values would best be preserved and whether and how a continuous presence of a foreign military was a threat to them. Towards the end of the 20th century, however, this cleavage had shifted somewhat backstage and faded away in the early 21st century when the US withdrew its base due to changed international strategic circumstances. Parallel to the NATO/US base dimension in Icelandic politics, particularly from the 1960s onward, divisions unfolded regarding the extent and depth of Icelandic participation in European integration processes (Einarsson, 2009); first towards the membership of EFTA, which Iceland joined in 1971; then towards the EEA which Iceland joined in 1994 and, eventually, towards a membership application submitted to the EU in 2009, which is still in 2026 a debated issue. The present coalition government of Kristrún Frostadóttir has on its policy programme to call a national referendum by 2027 on whether to renew the application (Evrópuvaktin, 2015, Platform, 2024). The Icelandic National Election Study at the University of Iceland (ICENES) team has further developed this second cross-cutting cleavage based og voter and candidate surveys and defined it as a ”cultural cleavage”. On the one hand there is international liberalism and on the other patriotic conservativism. This continuum involves positions on as diverse issues as liberalising drug use, gender equality, environmentalism, heavy industry, immigration, and European cooperation (Helgason and Þórisdóttir, 2024).

Thus, through the decades two salient cleavages have shaped the political environment and culture in Iceland. On the one hand, the socio-economic dimension along the left – right continuum, and, on the other, a dimension of liberal international cooperation versus a more nationalistic, patriotic “sovereignty – protective” standpoint.

This reality is reflected in the civic culture in Iceland, a culture fundamentally characterized by shared values synthesising the divisions of class and social position and the different outlooks on Iceland’s international relations. This civic culture is, therefore – as Almond and Verba (1963/89) pointed out in their seminal work– in a central role when examining the type of democratic society based upon it. Inevitably, different political cultures are to a lesser or greater extent at play at the same time within any given society and interact and negotiate with one another.

A rich body of scholarly literature on various aspects of civic culture, civic engagement, politics, and integration has been published in recent years (Chang et al. 2023). These studies often differ in nature, with some being empirical and others more conceptual in approach. Quite often they deal both geographically and subject-wise with confined areas of civic culture, such as e.g. discrimination and civic engagement (Müssig and Okrug, 2024), Vaccination hesitancy in Iceland (Meckl et al., 2025) and Eastern European youth in Britain and their political engagement (Sime and Behrens, 2023). This variety reflects the lack of consensus on the definition of the term civic culture or civic engagement, and that the concept spans various activities aimed at improving community life (Adler and Goggin, 2005; Doolittle and Faul, 2013).

The long-standing influence of Almond and Verba on scholarly discussion – and the main reason for revisiting them here – is in fact their notion of how this interaction and mediation of different cultures shapes and influences the development and form of democratic systems. This contribution is not necessarily dependent on whether one accepts the conception of three ideal-typical democratic cultures: parochial, subject or participatory cultures which Almond and Verba suggested. It is the mediation and integration of the Civic Culture that is of most importance. A slightly different but related perspective can be found in Putnam’s analysis of social capital (Putnam, 1993,2000). Unlike some other scholars such as Bourdieu, who saw social capital as a property of the individual rather than the collective, Putnam considers the social capital of large groups or societies which thus becomes a positive social and democratic quality. This then refers to social trust, trust in institutions, values and communication as important elements of social capital and the civic culture. For Putnam, trust and civic engagement therefore play a key role when it comes to democratic participation and inclusion, while other scholars acknowledge that there is a relation between the two but are not prepared to state as categorically how direct this relationship is (Portes, 1998; Fukuyama, 2001).

The civic culture or social capital in a Putnamian sense is an important element in analysing and defining different traits of democratic societies. As stated above, the Icelandic civic culture has mostly been rather homogeneous while at the same time managing to resolve and mediate between the two main political cleavages. In light of the rapid increase in the number of immigrants, people that by and large come from countries with very different political systems and civic cultures, it is far from self-evident that they would fit in and be active participants in the Icelandic civic culture and become members of an inclusive democratic society. Thus, as stated at the onset, the object of the paper is to examine how immigrants are included in the civic culture in Iceland, and to what extent this culture has mediated and absorbed new ideas and values.

Participation, trust and acculturation of immigrants

The use of immigrants of the host country´s media is an important indicator of their participation an involvement in society. Several studies show that media use of immigrants is of major importance for their acculturation in their host countries (Dalisay, 2012; Timmermans, 2018; Jamal et al., 2019). Empirical studies of immigrants and media in America and in Europe suggest that both traditional and social media play a considerable role in the process of acculturation in a variety of ways. Clearly, the mindsets or strategies of immigrants seem to matter in the approach to media use and acculturation. Alencar and Deuze (2017) found that the media use of both host country and international media by immigrants in Spain and the Netherlands was linked to the immigrants’ strategy to integrate and to assimilate the culture, politics and language of the host society. Furthermore, they suggested that education and language skills influenced how they used news for the purpose of assimilating and/or integrating into the host society (Alencar & Deuze, 2017).

Similarly, Seo and Moon (2013) highlighted the importance of immigrants’ motives and strategies when they discovered that acculturative stress among Korean immigrants in the US encouraged a certain media use pattern. The immigrants who felt stressed tended to use ethnic news media more and US media less than those that were not stressed, and this type of news consumption pattern made them less likely to engage in civic activities related to mainstream US society (Seo & Moon, 2013).

In a study in Iceland published in 2018, Einarsdóttir et al. found that participants with a foreign background felt less connected and less cared for by the Icelandic government, and they sensed that they were less knowledgeable and less informed than participants with an Icelandic background. A very similar result was reported in the investigative journalism programme, Kveikur, shown on the national public broadcast station RÚV in September 2023 (Sigurðardóttir and Þórisson 2024).

Immigrant voter turnout has been studied and/or registered in western countries for the past few decades. In Iceland voter turnout in local elections has varied somewhat in the last two decades. One study found that voter turnout among immigrants in the 2006 local elections was about 25 per cent (Jónsdóttir, Harðardóttir & Garðarsdóttir, 2009). However, a rapid increase in numbers of immigrants in following years seemed to have lowered the turnout ratio, possibly because newly or relatively newly arrived people are less likely to vote than people that have stayed longer. This decline in turnout seems to have happened despite a change in the regulations on who has the right to vote before the 2022 elections, when the required time of residency for voting was lowered from 5 to 3 years (Hagstofa Íslands, 2025).

A study of local government elections in Sweden 2014 showed a 35 percent voter turnout among immigrants, similar to the elections in 1998-2010 (Statistiska Centralbyrån, 2015). In the parliamentary elections in 2018 and 2022 the turnout among foreign citizens was between 30 and 40 percent (Statistiska Centralbyrån, 2023). Kleven et al. (2022) show statistics on 50-55 percent voter turnout among immigrants in Norwegian elections in the years 2001 – 2021 (Kleven et al. 2022). Consequently, we can say that in at least three Nordic countries the voter turnout for immigrants has been 30 – over 50 percent for several decades.

As stated above social trust is instrumental in accessing social capital or the nature of the civic culture. Most often trust is divided into social trust on the one hand, which refers to trust between people in society and general legitimacy. On the other hand, institutional or political trust refers more to performance (Bjarnason, 2014). This entails that trust is conceptualised in at least two different ways. One conception sees trust as a rational evaluation or assessment of a particular condition. In this approach the focus is primarily on the trustee, the performance of the institution or actor that is to be trusted. The other conception sees trust as an affective feeling, a commitment or norm of someone that trusts. In this sense the focus is not necessarily on the trustee but on the one who trusts (Vilhelmsdóttir & Kristinsson, 2018). This can have implications for social research, and it is in this latter sense – the affective approach – that the trust discussion in relation to social capital (Putnam, 1993, 2000) and the civic culture (Almond and Verba, 1989) is based. Trust is thus seen as a stabilising democratic social and political element that is carried between generations through socialisation (Almond & Verba, 1989). Social trust and institutional trust are interlinked, and it might be suggested that social trust is an important prerequisite for institutional trust. However, Bjarnason (2014), following Rothstein and Stolle (2008), has pointed out that institutional trust can also be seen to be a prerequisite for social trust, as without institutional trust social interaction is made difficult, limiting the possibility of social trust. Whether evaluation of practice, affective predispositions or a combination of both is seen to be most important for the study of trust has not become a problem when it comes to measuring trust. Trust can be measured simply by using questionnaires that demonstrate people’s confidence in actors and institutions. Such measurements have been quite frequently used, both internationally and in Iceland. Generally, social trust has been measured high in Iceland as in the other Scandinavian countries, even to the extent that it has been seen to be a determining characteristic for this area, or “Nordic Gold” (Anderson, 2017). However, institutional or political trust in Iceland fell dramatically after the economic meltdown in 2008 (Bjarnason, 2014) whereas social trust remained intact, and it has been suggested that the loss of political trust after the economic meltdown focused more on the representational than the implementational aspect of the political system, involving a specific mistrust of actors and parties rather than signifying a legitimacy crisis (Vilhelmsdóttir & Kristinsson, 2018).

Methodology and index construction

The aim of this study is to measure, through survey-based indices, to what extent immigrants in Iceland are acculturated to the domestic civic culture. As far as we know this is one of very few research initiatives and the most comprehensive quantitative study on immigrants’ participation and integration in Icelandic society. The analysis is based on survey material from the research project Samfélög án aðgreiningar? Aðlögun innflytjenda á Íslandi. (e. Inclusive societies? The integration of immigrants in Iceland). An electronic survey among immigrants was implemented in the fall of 2018, translated into 7 languages and containing 39 questions. Respondents were identified through the snowball sampling method where centres of continuing education language schools all around the country were the key actors in finding participants. The total number of respondents was 2,211 (Meckl & Gunnþórsdóttir, 2020:8f). Reaching immigrants in Iceland randomly is difficult due to registration matters. As the sampling method was not random rigorous statistical analysis are not possible, but we seek to give extensive descriptive statistical data. Reservations are appropriate regarding the generalisability of our results for the same reasons.

Equilateral to the immigrant survey in the fall 2018 there was also conducted a survey among Icelanders on their attitudes to inclusion of immigrants into the Icelandic society. This was done in twelve municipalities and areas which met the conditions regarding the number of immigrants residing in the areas (Sölvason and Meckl, 2019).

As stated in the introductory chapter much of scholarly literature on civic culture and civic engagement focuses on specific aspects of the phenomena, e.g. political engagement or certain social variables. However, by combining different but related variables and operationalising them in the form of indices, it is possible to obtain a better and broader picture and, ideally, gain insight into how and wether different parts of the civic culture interact and are being negotiated.

The principal index we use in most of our analyses in this article (Participatory Index) is constructed of three components, “Activity”, “Use of Icelandic media” and “Voted in the local government elections 2018”. Participation can be measured in a number of ways e.g. through membership in organisations of different types. Taking part in society is also accomplished through following domestic media (as mentioned above). Following the news and media is a form of engagement in society and hence participation. Finally, using one’s right to vote is a form of taking part in a community/society.

The component of “Activity” is composed of the number of organisations, clubs, or associations the respondent claims to be a member in. One question in the survey asked whether the respondent was a member of: Sport clubs, youth organisations (ungmennafélög), choirs, women’s associations, rescue teams, the Red Cross, organisations such as Rotary or Kiwanis and finally political parties. These can all be considered as quite common in Iceland. The scores for this component increased with a higher number marked. Activity was classified as follows: Membership in none (1), Membership in one (2) Membership in two or more (3). Figure 1 shows the immigrants’ activity. The overwhelming majority of the immigrants in the survey claim membership in no organisation and only about 5 percent in more than one.

Figure 1. Immigrants’ activity measured through membership in various organisations (%).

“Use of Icelandic media” comprises answers to a question about the frequency of using domestic media. The classification was: “Never” (1), “Every 2-4 weeks” (2), and “Weekly or more” (3). As figure 2 shows, more than 50 percent of immigrants use Icelandic media weekly or more, while about ¼ never do.

Figure 2. Immigrants’ use of Icelandic media (%).

The third component in the Participatory Index is: “Voted in local government elections in 2018”. People were asked whether they voted in 2018 or not. Having voted yielded a score of 3 and not having voted resulted in a score of 1.[1]

Figure 3. Immigrants’ voter turnout in the Icelandic Local government elections 2018 (%).

These are the components building the Participatory Index which spanned the scores between 3 and 9, where a higher score meant more participation in Icelandic civic culture. In this paper we analyse the index by selected background variables collected in the immigrant survey. These are: gender, age, proficiency in the Icelandic language, residency in Iceland and its duration. The Participatory Index was also cross analysed with a Trust Index we constructed from the survey, consisting of answers to questions on trust in the police, the parliament, the Directorate of Labour, trade unions, the school system, and the health system.

Analysing participation and trust

In this section we show our analyses of the scores on the Participatory Index by different background variables. Further, we show the connection between participation and trust. Immigrants in Iceland score quite differently on the two indexes. As figures 4, 5 and 6 indicate, a considerable proportion of the immigrants (38 percent on 3-4) score low on the Participatory Index while very few score high (7 percent on 8-9). The majority of immigrants score neither low nor high (55 percent on 5-7). This indicates that immigrants are rather limited participants in the civic Icelandic culture as far as our index measures it.

Figure 4. Frequency of scores on the Participatory Index for immigrants (%).

Note: The scores range from 3 to 9 where 3 is lowest and 9 highest in participation.

Figure 5. The immigrants’ Participatory Index in three groups (%).

Note: From Figure 4 scores from 3 to 4 are classified „Low“, scores from 5 to 7 as „Some“and scores from 8 to 9 are classified as „High“.

At the same time as the Participatory Index shows low participation of immigrants, it is of considerable interest to note their high or rather high trust in several important institutions of Icelandic society. Figure 6 tells us that almost 2/3 of the responding immigrants show rather high or high trust on our Trust Index. In the survey, people were asked about trust in six institutions and organisations[2] answering on a 1-5 Likert scale where “no trust“ was coded as 1 and „A lot of trust“ was coded as 5. From the questions on the 6 institutions, we constructed a 6-30 scale. The scores were placed in 4 categories as we see in figure 6, with the following values and labels: “Low or no trust“ (6-12), “Rather low trust“ (13-18), “Rather high trust“ (19-24), “High trust“ (25-30).

Figure 6. Immigrants´ trust in Icelandic institutions (%).

As shown in Table 1 below, we do not see any consistency between the two indexes – that is, participation and trust among immigrants. There is no clear link between high participation and high trust, and we only see a minor connection of that kind.

Table 1. Immigrants’ participation by trust in institutions (%).

The Participatory Index and background variables

In this section we examine the immigrants’ scores by background variables collected in the survey from 2018. These variables are: Age, gender, length of residency in Iceland, proficiency in the Icelandic language and geographical region of origin. As shown earlier, the scores on the Participatory Index are mean scores on the scale 3 to 9 where a higher score means more participation.

Age

As one might have expected, the age of immigrants influences participation as measured by the index due to connections with longer stay as an immigrant. People above forty score on average higher than the average score of all respondents (5.0). Participation increases with age, with the youngest scoring lowest and the oldest highest (Figure 7). The scores for the oldest group are much higher than the scores for the youngest group, more than 50 percent higher.

Figure 7. The immigrants´ scores on the Participatory Index (3-9) by age.

Gender

The average scores for male and female immigrants are very similar as Figure 8 shows. The numbers for females are slightly higher, but a difference between male and female of 0,3 on the 3 – 9 scale is very little.

Figure 8. The immigrants scores on the Participatory Index by gender.

Place of residency in Iceland

This background variable is of particular interest as it is likely that the place of residence matters regarding participation, in this case whether immigrants lived in sparsely or densely populated areas. The sample size and the spreading of immigrants around the country did not allow us to analyse our material by municipalities and sometimes not even by regions. However, we tried to push the matter further by categorising regions into two sectors: The “capital area” (densely populated, Reykjavík and surroundings) and “outside capital area” (more sparsely populated), the latter being areas with some densely populated municipalities but overall, much fewer inhabitants. As Figure 9 shows, there is almost no difference. These results suggest that it does not seem to matter for immigrants’ participation, social or political, whether they live in urban or more rural and sparsely populated areas.

Figure 9. The immigrants’ scores on the Participatory Index by region of residency.

Length of residency in Iceland

Figure 10 below, clearly indicates that those who have always lived in Iceland or have lived there for more than 20 years are more integrated in Icelandic culture through participation than those who have lived in the country for a shorter period. Scores of 6.9 and 7.2 out of 9 must be considered as quite active participation. The figure also shows that participation, as measured by the index, is closely connected to length of residency in the country. The index scores have a linear increase from the lowest score of 4.2 up to 7.2.

Figure 10. The immigrants´ scores on the Participatory Index by length of residency in the country.

Proficiency in the Icelandic language

Self-review or estimation of “Proficiency in the Icelandic language” is a background variable of importance. Here too, we see a linear relationship where participation is linked to proficiency in the language. The variation of the scores shows that learning the language is of importance for immigrants to adapt or integrate and that participation is important for learning the language.

Figure 11. The immigrants’ scores on the Participatory Index by own estimation of the proficiency in Icelandic.

Country/region of origin

The last background variable we look at is the geographical region of immigrants’ origin. The differences seem to be small. The average scores vary between 4.7 and 5.5 on the 3-9 scale which cannot be considered much – the difference between the lowest and the highest score is 13 percent of the whole scale. However, we can still see that immigrants from South America and Central and Eastern Europe have lower scores, while immigrants from Africa and Western Europe, the Nordic and North America have the higher scores. That is indeed in line with the afore mentioned numbers on a higher voter turnout in 2018 and 2022 elections of Nordic immigrants than other immigrants.

Figure 12. The immigrants’ scores on the Participatory Index by their geographical region of origin.

Comparing immigrants and natives

At the same time as the immigrant survey was implemented, in autumn 2018, a survey was conducted among a random sample of natives. A stratified random sample of 8100 persons in 12 selected municipalities around the country was asked to participate and 3610 agreed to do so. In terms of gender, the respondents were very evenly represented (51/49 per cent). The average age was about 51 years. Respondents were asked questions about life in Iceland, and, among other things, trust in institutions and activity through membership in organisations. These two questions were identical to those presented to the immigrants. A comparison of the answers to these questions is, therefore, highly interesting, allowing us to place the results for immigrants into context.

Figure 13 shows membership in selected organisations for both groups. The pattern is the same for all organisations; natives are more active. In most cases they are more active by far, but in three cases the difference is less than double: sports clubs, women’s associations and the Red Cross. In others, the difference is bigger, up to more than tenfold.

Figure 13. Immigrants’ and natives’ membership in organisations (%).

When the number of organisations is simplified into three categories, we see in figure 14 that only just over 20 percent of the immigrants are members of an organisation, while the number for natives is close to 50 percent. The difference is considerable.

Figure 14. Immigrants’ and natives’ membership in organisations – categories (%).

The second variable for comparison is “Trust in institutions”. Trust is not a matter of membership, but membership calls for activity and participation which encourages the build-up of trust in social institutions. Figure 15 shows less trust among immigrants in all the selected institutions. However, the differences are not as great as when comparing participation. The trust in the state run “Directorate of Labour“, and the “trade unions“ differs by less than 10 per centage points. It should be noted that participation in trade unions is very high among Icelanders. In other institutions the difference is 20-30 per centage points.

Figure 15. Immigrants’ and natives’ trust in institutions (%).

When an index of trust is constructed and the difference between the groups is compared, as shown in Figure 16, it appears that, in general, immigrants trust institutions to a lower degree than do natives. The proportion of immigrants expressing high trust is, for example, less than half of that among natives (15 percent / 33 percent).

Figure 16. Immigrants’ and natives’ trust in institutions – categories (%).

To sum up, there is a considerable difference between immigrants and natives when looking at integration through membership in organisations, but the difference between immigrants and natives is less when it comes to trust in institutions. This suggests that immigrants in Iceland have some trust in the Icelandic institutions, though not as much as natives. The survey material does not allow a complete comparison on the indices constructed between natives and immigrants. Not enough data is available to construct the Participatory Index for natives, but only parts of it.

Discussion

The main results of this study are that immigrants do not participate to any larger degree in Icelandic civic society while their trust in societal institutions is measured as rather high compared to their participation. This was not expected, since theory considers trust as the key to civic engagement and social capital (Putnam, 1992, 2001). We can offer somel explanations of this; for example, that the relationship between trust and civic culture is not a direct one and can be affected by some more complicated factors. Another explanation could be that our indexes for measuring participation and trust do not catch this correlation.

However, even though participatory culture, as defined by Almond and Verba (1989; 1963), has been prominent in Iceland’s political culture, this does not have to be the culture immigrants grew up with in their countries of origin. The fact is that the biggest groups of immigrants in the country come from East-European states where we can say that a subject culture existed under the Soviet regime’s influence. In that period citizens’ level of participation was generally limited by the state, which, despite that, was often trusted to perform basic functions. Indeed, this cultural difference between Eastern Europe and Iceland (and the Nordic countries) has surfaced in different fields, suggesting a complex relationship between trust and the role of government and participation or integration. Studies show that vaccine hesitancy in OVID-19 among Eastern European Immigrants in Iceland and in Norway was considerably greater than among natives. This has been explained with reference to different civic cultures, and complex interaction of economic and social factors, but also partly by the role of the state and distrust of authority by Eastern Europeans, which they import with them to the host country (Meckl et al., 2025; Kour et al., 2022).

Our analysis of immigrants’ participation by using the Participatory Index and several background variables shed light on some items of importance which should be further investigated. Firstly, there is the linear relationship between immigrants’ length of residency in the country, and their age and proficiency in Icelandic, on the one hand, and participation, on the other. It seems apparent that an important acculturation or interplay between immigrants and civil society takes place over time and leads to more participation among immigrants. Mapping this process would be interesting, not only to note how immigrants adapt to national culture and values but also to discover how, or whether, this interplay changes the existing civic and political culture. Indeed, as mentioned in the discussion of Icelandic political culture above, certain moral and liberal values as well as nationalistic and conservative have become more apparent in Iceland in recent years that might be attributed, in part at least, to this interplay. Furthermore, it is not surprising to see that the findings clearly suggest that learning the language is important for participation, while at the same time participation is important for learning the language. The linguistic issue has for a long time been prominent in most discussion on immigrants in Icelandic society. Language appears to be a ticket to the civic culture and participation, an element which is reflected in the patriotic undertone that has historically been evident in Icelandic political culture. Secondly, it is of particular interest to note the conclusion that the residency of immigrants in Iceland – whether they live in the capital area or in the smaller and more sparsely populated communities around the country – does not seem to matter regarding the degree of participation. We see this as an important finding and a valuable contribution to the discussion in Iceland on immigrants in general and quota-refugees specifically. The discussion has quite often been about whether it is better or worse to place refugees within or outside the capital area (Félagsmálaráðuneytið, 2019).

In fact, our analyses and measurements show that a large proportion of immigrants take at least some part in Icelandic society. This indicates that there are no serious defects in the acculturation of immigrants, nor are there – yet at least – emerging new major cleavages in the civic culture in the country. Nevertheless, it needs to be pointed out that “low” and “high” participation is relative. We cannot conduct any broad comparisons with other measurements, such as among native Icelanders, other than the two we presented in the preceding section of this article. Those results, even though not fully comparable, indicate lower participation and lower trust among immigrants than among natives.

In this article, we present indications that participation among many immigrants in civic society and culture could be higher. That, in itself, is a significant research result and a matter for public policymakers to consider ways to increase immigrant participation in Icelandic society. The type of research approach applied in this study, where important variables regarding immigrant acculturation are collapsed into indices, can also have useful implications beyond the Icelandic case, as the question of immigrants’ acculturation is a pressing issue in many countries.

Clearly, there are important limitations to our study. The most pressing ones relate to the fact that we do not have a random sample, which considerably limits the scope of statistical analysis. Also, the indices constitute an aggregate where the component parts weigh more or less equally, possibly missing some finer nuances in their relative importance. Civic culture, in the sense we have chosen to define and use the concept, is a setting for compromises and mediation of different cultural traits. The indices we have used to operationalise the concept of participation and trust may not catch the full content and nature of the culture in Iceland, but they are, however, important indicators.

References

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Alencar, A., & Deuze, M. (2017). News for assimilation or integration? Examining the functions of news in shaping acculturation experiences of immigrants in the Netherlands and Spain. European Journal of Communication, 32(2), 151–166. https://doi.org/10.1177/0267323117689993

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Endnotes

[1] In this question people could mark the answering alternative „Did not have the right to vote“. Those who answered with that were excluded from further analysis of voting participation.

[2] The institutions/organisations were following: Police, the Parliament, the Directorate of Labour, trade unions, the school system and the health system.

Trust vs. Crisis

24/05/2014Conference proceedings (triple non-blind peer review)Alf Ross, Arthur G. Neal, Niklas Luhmann, bank advisor, crisis, functional analyses, social norms, trustKirsten Mogensen

Introduction

This article views crisis in the light of trust. From this perspective, crisis is a natural psychological reaction to a situation in which humans do not feel confident to act because they do not know what to expect from other people in the community. Theoretically, it can be a permanent state of uncertainty (Luhmann 1979: 4); however, a crisis is usually caused by a change, by a sudden realization that the norms and meaning-systems that they expected others to follow are actually not shared by others. In a crisis situation people are confused about the rules of society, do not know whom they can trust and do not dare to act because they cannot foresee the consequences. The complexity is overwhelming. They have gotten a wake-up-call and need time to learn the new rules of the game before they again feel confident to act.

The 2000s have been framed in terms of crisis. A major event in the start of the decade was the terrorist attack in the USA on September 11, 2001, which led to explicit distrust in foreigners around the world, to the war on terror, and to different systems of social control. Other crises followed in that same decade, including the so-called economic crisis, followed by distrust in financial institutions as well as in political leaders (Glassman 2014: 23). The World Economic Forum perceives trust or lack of trust as “a crucial factor in how risks may manifest themselves” in the world (2012: 49).

In this article, trust in bank advisors will be used as an example to illustrate the link among normative expectations, trust and crisis. Banks are important institutions for society. In an article discussing regulations of the banking system, Duffie reminds the readers of the functions of banks, including this:

Banks operate the economy’s most important payment and settlement systems. It would be difficult for a market-based economy to carry out its essential functions if buyers of goods and services were unable to settle their transactions by debiting their bank accounts (or borrowing on bank credit lines) in favor of the bank accounts of sellers (2012: 40).

When an institution has an important role to play in society, it is also important that it can be trusted. Before the financial crisis, bankers in Western Europe and North America were generally considered trustworthy by the public, but that is far from the case today. According to an OECD/Gallup survey reported in Bloomberg BusinessWeek (Glassman 2014: 23), people in many European countries as well as in the USA have lost confidence in banks from 2007-12. Since the crisis started, many middle-class families have lost savings, and numerous media reports have informed the public about widespread manipulation (e.g., Isidore 2014) and mismanagement by banks. Media coverage no doubt contributed to the negative image that the banking sector as a whole has today. MediaTenor compared the media coverage of the banking sector to that of the tobacco industry and nuclear energy sector in more than one hundred international media and wrote in 2012:

Four years ago the media reputation of the banking industry was only worse than the tobacco industry. Since then, the picture for the financial sector hasn’t gotten better, but worse. Now the banking industry is rated even more negatively in the media than the nuclear energy sector (Kolmer, Schatz and Vollbracht 2012: 7).

Public polls document the general distrust in the banking sector. As an example, Ipsos MORI learned from telephone interviews with more than a thousand British adults that 77 percent of them would not trust politicians and 75 percent would not trust bankers to tell them the truth (2013). Another survey company, YouGov-Cambridge, found that a large majority agreed with statements like “Bankers are greedy and get paid too much” and approximately half agreed that “Banks are at best unprofessional and at worst dishonest” (2013: 7, 24). Vallentin wrote that the mistrust in banks could be considered a crisis and he added:

The suspicion that our banks lie to us, cheat us with interest and fees, or simply go broke in a moment, is a widespread phenomenon that banks have to fight with real improvements behind the words, if they want to win public confidence back (2013, translated from Danish by Google).

The 2010s have been characterized by a renewed longing for trust in fellow citizens, foreigners and institutions. In that connection, experts from many fields have discussed how to repair the general image of banks (e.g. Bower, Leonard & Paine 2011; Duffie 2012; Kolmer et al 2012; YouGov-Cambridge 2013).

To illustrate the connection among normative expectations, trust and crisis, I will use a constructed case in which a man called Petersen seeks advice in his bank regarding investment of his pension saving. Bank advisor Miller strongly encourages Petersen to buy stocks in the bank, and Petersen follows the advice. However, shortly after the purchase of the stocks, the bank goes broke, and Petersen loses his savings. The case is constructed on bases of testimonies from many shareholders who said that they had been strongly advised by their bank advisor to buy stocks in the Roskilde Bank, Denmark, in days just before the bank collapsed in 2008 (Ritzau 2013). Some of these people later received compensation from the Danish state due to an extraordinary aggressive marketing campaign combined with lack of relevant, trustworthy information in the communication with customers (Forbrugerombudsmanden 2013).

The Phenomena: Norms, Trust and Crisis

In the following I will first describe three social phenomena, norms, trust/distrust and crisis response in relation to the case, and then combine these three concepts in a theoretical model that shows how they are linked and what their function is in relation to one another.

For this analysis I will refer to Alf Ross’ essay Directive and Norms (1967) and Niklas Luhmann’s essay Trust (1968; 1979). Even though the two essays were written half a century ago, they deal at a very fundamental level with some concepts that seem relevant for our understanding of the present crisis.

As it is evident from the publication dates, the two European professors contributed to the academic debate with these essays at approximately the same time. This was a time when many scholars were interested in topics related to complexity (Knudsen 2010; Luhmann 1979: 5). Ross and Luhmann both had a background in law and were interested in understanding the role of social phenomena such as trust and norms. Both drew in that connection on theories from the field of sociology. Alf Ross analyzed in this essay “the concepts ‘directive’ and ‘norm’ as they function in social science, especially within the legal theory and (…) the study of conventional morality, folkways and related topics” (Ross 1967: 8), while Luhmann analyzed trust and distrust in its many forms, including interpersonal and institutional trust.

Ross (1899-1979) was a professor of international law at Copenhagen University, Denmark, and Luhmann (1927-98) a professor of sociology at University of Bielefeld, Germany. They have had enormous influence on European intellectual thinking throughout half a century, but they belonged to different academic communities, and despite their influence and similarities, their theories are usually not combined.

A third important scholar for this paper is Arthur G. Neal, emeritus distinguished professor in sociology at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, USA. His newest book (2014) analyzes the phenomenon of values, but he has previously analyzed other social psychological phenomena. For this paper I will draw on insights into the phenomenon of crisis reactions from his book National Trauma & Collective Memories (1998).

Ross: Norms

In the constructed case for this paper, Petersen has read about different pension-saving plans on websites belonging to financial institutions. Since each of them sounds appealing, he realizes that he needs advice from an expert. So Petersen makes a visit to bank advisor Miller.

Using terminology from Ross, it follows from an interpretation of the circumstance that Petersen considers Miller “trustworthy in two ways”:

1. He believes that Miller is well-informed about the matter

2. He expects Miller to say what he believes to be true

It would not make sense to ask advice on important matters like pension savings from persons whom we expect to cheat or be uninformed. It is exactly because Petersen “has reason to believe that these two conditions are satisfied he is willing to accept the proposition which [Miller] presents to him” (Ross 1967: 22). According to Ross, advisors such as medical doctors, lawyers and good friends are generally expected to provide directives that will best serve the advisees’ interests (Ross 1967: 44).

However, from the bank advisor’s perspective, other specific commercial norms might trump these general social norms. For example, the advisor may have been trained to sell the bank’s products and thus serve the interests of his employer rather than the interests of the customer. The fact that he has been introduced to customers like Petersen as “adviser” instead of “salesman” is just part of a persuasion logic. In other words, Petersen and Miller have different perceptions of the system of norms involved.

In our case, the interpretation of the situation is obviously very important. We must evaluate if the meeting between Miller and Petersen is a sales event where Miller is expected to try to sell the bank’s financial products or an advisory meeting where Petersen seeks advice from Miller in his capacity as financial expert. It might not help to be explicit about it. Many sales people try to convince customers that they are there to “help” them. Customers are expected to be able to interpret the situation correctly based on their cultural knowledge.

Ross perceives convention as a “social phenomenon” that has “over-individual existence similar to that of the law” (Ross 1967: 52) among people in certain communities and social groups; however, one group may disagree with another group about what is seen as morally acceptable. In our case, Petersen and Miller may not agree on the conventions regarding bank advisors. In general, norms cannot be evaluated as true or false; we can only say that they exist and when they are applied (Ross 1967: 102). Whatever we may think about the norms applied by Miller and Petersen, it will be a moral reasoning based on our own moral standards and they are not universal.

According to Ross, morality depends on a foundation of values and ideas “which one approves immediately and takes as directly binding” (Ross 1967: 58) The individual, not authority, decides whether the norms are valid and implies obligations, even though cultural norms, value, customs and conventions are originally learned through social interaction, including childhood education (Ross 1967: 67). Moral values are often “organized in a hierarchy, so that values and principles at one level may be derived from those at a higher level” (Ross 1967: 67). Such systems have built-in criteria for what norms are justified (Ross 1967: 49). People apply their own moral system when judging the behavior of others as well as their own (Ross 1967: 66). In our context it could mean that Miller with his commercial values perceives Petersen as being easy to persuade, while Petersen – believing that advice is guided by compassionate values – perceive the friendly, smiling Miller as a person who honestly is trying to help him.

In social science, according to Ross, when talking about “existence of a norm it is understood that by this we refer to a social state of affairs – i.e. to conditions which although changing, are of relative permanence” (Ross 1967: 80). A norm is a “directive which corresponds to certain social facts” (Ross 1967: 93), which means that it is “generally followed by members of the society” (Ross 1967: 93) or smaller social groups (Ross 1967:94) and that people feel it “binding (valid)” (Ross 1967: 93). That a norm is binding is, in Ross’ view, a mental and psychological experience. A person who is in a situation where a certain norm is expected will feel “a special prompting or impulse to act according to the pattern. This impulse does not appear as a manifestation of his need and interests; it may indeed conflict with these” (Ross 1967: 85). He feels that he has a duty, that it is the right thing to do, that he ought to do it. People observing him have an expectation that he will follow the norms, and if he does not, they may feel negatively about his behavior. Ross discusses with some other scholars if the negative reaction from society is the strongest reason for conformity; however, as Ross writes: “To some extent the two views lead to the same results” (Ross 1967: 87). The experience of validity of a norm has a lot to do with “psychological phenomena” (Ross 1967: 86) experienced by the people involved.

According to Ross, we generally trust the “veracity of others”:

If trust did not exist or were not justified, no communication would be possible. (…)The point is that even lying, the misleading of people through false information, is possible only on the same conditions. Lies exist only as parasites on truth; they are conceivable only as exceptions which depend on the norm they violate (Ross 1967: 23).

Clearly, Petersen trusted the veracity of Miller, and Miller should have known that he was expected to be honest. He must have been aware that if he lied and was detected, he would be held responsible. According to social norms, he would “be branded as a liar” (Ross 1967: 26). To be branded as a liar is a social sanction, not an institutional. Other reactions of disapproval include “ridicule and ostracism.”

In our case, it does make a difference if Miller is guided by internal prompting or fear of societal punishment. He may in fact not expect any punishment in case he cheats Petersen in a business negotiation. In a professional discussion with his colleagues he can easily argue that Petersen was too naïve, and he might even earn a bonus for every new customer like Petersen. However, if he experiences Petersen as a vulnerable man trusting him to give honest advice, then he may feel a prompting to act compassionate in accordance with moral norms in the society, even though he may in that case lose a reward from his employer and be ridiculed by his colleagues.

Norms describe how to act in different types of situations, and since they are generally shared by people in a society, they are mirrored in our expectations to other peoples’ behavior in certain situations (Ross 1967: 107). As humans, we expect that other people in our society will behave in accordance with general accepted norms and meanings systems (Poggi 1979: xiii-xiv; Ross 1967: 78-81). We hardly notice people, who on a daily basis behave in accordance with the general norms because they just do as expected, but if they violate the norms – and if no legal instruments are used – then the sanctions are social forms of nonviolent disapproval.

Norms are independent of how any individual reacts as long as it is “generally effective among members of a social group” (Ross 1967: 99). Some norms are universal so that they apply to all of us, while other norms are specific so that they apply to certain people in certain situations only, e.g., during a fire emergency workers are expected to move toward the fire while the rest of us are expected to move away. Norms cannot be determined from behavior alone – the behavior must be analyzed in the light of the meaning the person ascribes to it and the mental evaluation involved.

Luhmann: Trust and distrust

We will now from a trust perspective analyze the situation where Petersen discussed the options with the bank advisor Miller.

According to Luhmann, the world presents itself as overwhelmingly complex, so as humans we look for solutions that can reduce the complexity (1979: 7). Trust can be perceived as such a way to reduce complexity, and at its most basic level it implies a “confidence in one’s expectations” (Luhmann 1979: 4). If we do not know what to expect, we become paralyzed. Luhmann describes the situation for a human without such trust in own expectations:

He would be prey to a vague sense of dread, to paralyzing fears. (…) Anything and everything would be possible. Such abrupt confrontation with the complexity of the world at its most extreme is beyond human endurance (1979: 4).

Petersen had many expectations when he entered the bank, e.g., he expected that the bank was open and that Miller would talk with him. These and many other expectations were confirmed. However, he also expected Miller to help him, and that expectation was violated, which cost him his pension. In general, it is always risky to trust other people because we never know if other people will behave the way we expect. Luhmann:

Since other people have their own firsthand access to the world and can experience things differently, they may consequently be a source of profound insecurity for me (1979: 6).

This insecurity about what to expect from other people may be more manageable with increased knowledge about the people involved and their norms (Luhmann 1979: 19, 33), but risk is an existential reality that will never disappear.

Our expectations regarding the world we live in are created on the basis of personal experiences and on experiences shared through personal networks and mass media. News can help us to adjust our expectations and as long as the world is pretty much behaving as expected: we feel confident in our ability to act in the world. Luhmann:

The world is therefore constituted as the universal horizon of experience, which must be presupposed in every movement and can never be departed from.

The manner in which experience is led to organized meaning and the world so as to make the complex conditions of existence comprehensible is an operation carried out intersubjectively (1979: 18, referring to Husserl).

Our expectations regarding the future are based on our experiences, so in that way our experiences are the link that connects history to the future. This is true both at society level and at a personal level. If Petersen previously had experienced bank advisors as helpful, had heard from others that they received good advice or had read in advertisements that his bank advisor was there to help, then this information has contributed to his expectations regarding the service he would receive from Miller.

Petersen has to stop up and re-evaluate the situation when he realizes that he has lost his pension because he has been fooled to buy stocks in the bank. To continue to trust bank advisors to help him could easily be considered what Luhmann calls “pathological trust” (1979: 33), because he had received plenty of objectives clues that had proved to him that his previous trust was not justified. He would have to adjust his expectations and had different options, including:

1. Specific distrust: Miller is not trustworthy but other bank advisors are, so Petersen changes banks.

2. General distrust: Bank advisors are not trustworthy, so Petersen will not ask bank advisors for help with his investments in the future.

Petersen realized later that Miller had behaved differently from what he expected, and that happens to all of us on a regular basis. If such an incident can be perceived as an isolated case and if it has limited impact on us, then we just change our expectations about the people involved. However, if the violation of our expectations has a huge impact and we do not know what to expect next, then we experience a crisis. During the time that is characterized by crisis reactions we judge whom to trust and what to expect in the future. The crisis creates room for evaluation and new orientation.

I will now turn to the description of how people experience the period where the judgment has not been made and people don’t know what to expect. A crisis is usually perceived as a very unpleasant state of affair, but from my analytical point of view it is a natural reaction to unexpected violation of norms.

Neal: Crisis Response

If a person loses trust in his or her own expectations the consequence is a reaction that can best be termed crises. For example, many people reacted with crisis symptoms when they realized that they had lost their pension savings for reasons related to the financial crisis. In connection with the so-called Enron Scandal, USA, in the 2000s, republican blogger and activist Ron Branson wrote: “There is little more upsetting than to discover that you have been scammed for your entire life-savings and for everything you owned” (2007). Unfortunately, Enron was not the only case where pension savers lost money. There have been revealed so many cases of mismanagement of pension funds and investments that it has contributed to a perception of a pension crisis (e.g., Siedle 2013).

When expectations are seriously violated, it creates a trauma that then causes the crisis reaction. Neal describes a trauma experience like this:

[A]n ongoing activity has been interrupted by an adverse happening that is unexpected, painful, extraordinary, and shocking (…) Previous feelings of safety and security are replaced by perceptions of danger, chaos, and a crisis of meaning (1998: 3).

In most cases we experience traumas as something that only affects us as individuals, as a personal loss, but some traumas are shared simultaneously by large groups of people, as when thousands lost savings in connection with the collapse of the Lehman Brothers in 2008 (Wikipedia 2014), and millions of other citizens instantly realized that they had trusted a huge financial institution which was actually not trustworthy. Such a trauma is experienced as “an assault on social life as it is known and understood” (Neal 1998: 4). Typical reactions include feelings of shock, disbelief, helplessness, numbness, anger, fear, vulnerability, and detachment. According to Neal, “Chaos prevails, and people become uncertain about what they should or ought to believe” (1998: 4). The trauma make them realize that their “own sense of morality and decency is not shared by others.” (Neal 1998: 6).

Some crises are not caused by a sudden event but are caused by growing contradictions in the social system. Neal writes about the reactions to the economic depression in the USA in the 1930s:

As banks began to fail with increasing frequency and as levels of unemployment escalated (…) economic hardship took its toll on all major sectors of the economy. Capitalism was in a state of crisis, and the free enterprise system failed to work. Economic hardships translated into fear, vulnerability, and a sense of despair (Neal 1998: 8).

During a crisis, most people tend to stop up and take time to seek an understanding of what happens (Neal 1998: 12), and they will therefore tend to limit their decision making to those issues that require immediate action:

People see themselves as moving into uncharted territory. The central hopes and aspirations of personal lives are temporarily put on hold and replaced by the darkest of fear and anxieties (Neal 1998: 5).

The trauma must be healed. “The integrity of the social order has been called into question, and shared values are threatened” (Neal 1998: 5). A major task “is that of integrating the traumatic event into the fabric of social life in order to make it less threatening” (Neal 1998: 12), because “it is through causal explanations that the dynamics of the social world are constructed into coherent patterns” (Neal 1998: 13). In any case, the “discourse throughout the nation is directed towards the repair work” (Neal 1998: 5). Neal:

An extraordinary event becomes a national trauma under circumstances in which the social system is disrupted to such a magnitude that it commands the attention of all major subgroups of the population. Even those who are usually apathetic and indifferent to national affairs are drawn into the public arena to discuss and debate. The social fabric is under attack and people pay attention because the consequences appear to be so great that they cannot be ignored (Neal 1998: 9-10).

Because expectations have been violated, people in crisis have lost confidence in their previous evaluations of which people and institutions they can trust. It is a crucial ability for survival in society, and in order to master that skill in the future people are especially interested in understanding how “human intentions, decisions, and actions are linked in shaping the course of events” (Neal 1998: 13-14).

In his 1998 book Neal analyzed nine national traumas that had serious impact on the life in the USA. The global financial crisis in the 2000s fits the criteria for this type of collective trauma because it “had a major impact on the institutional structure of society and fed into overriding forms of collective fear and anxiety” (Neal 1998: x).

Combining the Concepts and Their Functions

I will now combine the three concepts — norms, trust, and crisis — into one theoretical model that illustrates the relationship among the three phenomena. While I claim full authorship for combining the three concepts in the model, the structure of the model is heavily inspired by figures in Morten Knudsen’s article Surprised by Method – Functional Method and System Theory (2010) that discusses Luhmann’s work and methodology.

In his analysis of trust Luhmann used a methodology that he called functional method. Essentially the researcher studies a phenomenon like trust, norms or crisis reactions and tries to understand what problems this phenomenon solves for humans. For example, there are a number of phenomena that help people cope with complexity, including norms, law, formal organization, trust, and power (Knudsen 2010: 11; Luhmann 1979: 8). When we have a list of possible solutions to a problem, we can compare the solutions. For example, we can compare how well norms solve the problem compared to law. Knudsen:

The function is the unity of the problem [xxx] and different solutions to this problem (2010: 8)

Problems such as complexity cannot be studied directly and is therefore constructed as a theory. For example, norms are studied and the researcher suggests that the reason for the existence of norms is that it is a solution to a problem called complexity. But norms can also be solutions to other problems. So a problem can have any number of solutions, and solutions can be the answer to any number of problems. Luhmann:

Given this approach, the process of research in functional analysis is open to all kinds of possibilities (…) The functional compartmentalization of this unity into a problem (increase of complexity) on the one hand, and a solution (reduction of complexity) on the other, serves simply as a means to compare different kinds of solution (1979: 5,7).

Trust and distrust are equivalent solutions to the problem of complexity because they allow for quick decision-making. Because Petersen trusts that Miller will be helpful, he seeks his advice without calculating the effect of all types of behavior he might encounter in the bank. Knudsen:

Trust compensates for an element of uncertainty related to other people’s behavior. If everything possible should be expected all the time, it would be difficult to do anything (2010: 20).

Similarly, if Petersen distrusts Miller, he will not spend a lot of time predicting his behavior in this specific case but will instantly be suspicious and seek advice another place. The following figure illustrates the function between a problem – complexity – and a solution:

Mogensen-Fig1

Figure 1 From Problem to solution (Knudsen 2010: 20)

There is not a causal relationship between a problem and possible solutions. In principle there can be many different solutions to a problem as we know from comparative studies, for example, of law in different cultures (Michaels 2006). The challenge for a scholar using this methodology is to create theories that can explain how a given phenomenon functions as a solution to a problem.

Since trust is linked to confidence in expectations, we need to have reliable expectations, and there are different solutions to that problem, including laws and norms. Luhmann:

The necessity of trust can be regarded as the correct and appropriate starting point for the derivation of rules of proper conduct (1979: 4).

As I interpret Luhmann, rules for proper conduct are a desirable foundation for trust. And the existence of such rules in the form of legal directives and (moral) norms is the phenomenon that Alf Ross analyzed in his essay. Ross did not use the term “function,” but he explained how the concept of norms was a solution to a problem:

We need the concept “norm” to express the social fact, which is independent of how any individual reacts, that is generally effective among members of a social group (Ross 1967: 99).

Our knowledge about the norms of different groups makes it easier to have reliable expectations. If advisors are generally perceived as trustworthy and helpful, Petersen has good reasons to expect Miller to act in accordance with those professional norms. Combining the two essays in one figure could look like this:

Figure 2 Combining Luhmann and Ross

Figure 2 illustrates how norms make it easier for a person to decide whether or not to trust because the expectations can be linked to social norms for proper conduct.

In everyday life, most of us are competent citizens. We have confidence in our own expectations regarding the world and other people, and we constantly make minor adjustments to our expectations based on what we experience. However, sometimes we experience events that violate our expectations to such a degree that we don’t know what to expect next. Our usual solutions to dealing with the complexity of the world have failed, and we step into a crisis mood as illustrated in Figure 3:

Figure 3 Problems, possible solutions and crisis

As shown in Figure 3, my analysis indicates that crisis is a normal and healthy reaction when one’s own expectations have been seriously violated with negative consequences and time is needed for reorientation. To continue trusting the people and institutions that have created a serious trauma is pathological. While in the crisis mode, people like Petersen can adjust their expectations to the behavior of other people, and when a crisis is shared by a collective, it is also an opportunity to reorganize social life and negotiate new standards for proper behavior. Because a crisis is a very unpleasant state, people are truly motivated to find solutions. Thus, from a functional perspective, we may consider a crisis to be one possible solution to the problem of immutability.

A trauma changes the victim – whether a person or a society – forever (Neal 1998: 4). When the crisis has passed, people have changed their expectations, and this has also been the effect of the scandals related to financial institutions. If we return to our constructed case, Petersen expected Miller to help him when he came for advice. Petersen was not alone in his expectations regarding the norms of bank advisors. The outrage expressed publicly when it became obvious that bank customers had been fooled by their advisors – not only in Roskilde but in financial institutions around the world – is a clear indication of the fact that before the financial crisis many people like Petersen thought that bank advisors were serving their interests in line with general norms for professional advice. They had somehow presumed that the norms guiding relationships between customers and professional advisors, such as physicians and lawyers, also guided the relationship with bank advisors.

That expectation changed. The public debate made people aware that bank advisors are salespersons guided by commercial norms, which means that Miller’s commercial norms have been accepted as the rule of the game. Petersen’s expectations of his bank advisor are now considered naïve. Using Luhmanns concepts we might even talk about pathological trust if people now trust their bank advisors to give them independent and trustworthy advice. Stories about fooled bank customers appear often in the news as part of the coverage of ongoing court cases, and they will no doubt be retold many times in the years to come because a new generation needs to understand the norms.

Since people have formed new expectations regarding bank advisors, they can once again feel confidence in their own expectations. They can trust.

References

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Branson, R. 2007, March 21-last update, Victim of Enron Scandal? Court Says – Too Bad! [Homepage of J.A.I.L. News Journal], [Online]. Available: http://www.jail4judges.org/J.A.I.L._News_Journals/2007/2007-03-21.html [2014, April 3].

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Forbrugerombudsmanden 2013, December 3, 2013-last update, Erstatning på vej til mange Roskilde Bank-aktionærer [Homepage of Forbrugerombudsmanden], [Online]. Available: http://www.forbrugerombudsmanden.dk/Nyheder-fra-FO/Pressemeddelelser/Erstatning-paa-vej-til-mange-Roskilde-Bankaktionaerer?tc=BF261306197B4C528A4E939E2731D6DE [2014, March 26].

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Kristina Kappelin, Berlusconi – Italienaren (Stockholm: Brombergs, 2010)

23/03/2012Book review (editorial review)Berlusconi, Catholic Church, Italy, Mafia, Monti, Politics, Sweden, chauvinism, looks, media, organised crime, transparency, trustMonica Quirico

Kappelin knows, and loves, Italy: there is no trace, in her work, of a superiority complex towards Italians – such folkloristic people! ? which is on the contrary a common feature of some foreign media when dealing with Italy. Rather, Kappelin tries to understand how came that a country with a unique cultural and historical heritage has let itself be bluffed by a man who has – perhaps irreparably – compromised Italy’s reputation in the world.

And the book is indeed not only about the founder of “Forza Italia”, but instead, as it is made clear by the meaningful title (Berlusconi. The Italian), about Berlusconi as embodiment of some national peculiarities, so to say.

Italy in the whole have not yet been able to reflect about Berlusconi’s almost twenty-year dominance over the country’s political and economic life, pressed as it is just now (February 2012) by a never-ending emergency – the risk of a financial collapse – which caused, in November 2011, the appointment of a “technical government” (i.e. voted by the Parliament but not resulting from the last general election) being charged with the task of crisis management. Furthermore, although “style” is significant – professor Mario Monti does not “peekaboo” the German chancellor (Kappelin reminds Berlusconi’s blunders in chapter seven, Tittut i världen) and seems not to be used to spend his nights with twenty- to thirty young girls at the same time – the common feeling is that there has not occurred any shift in economic and social policies, which remain unfair and not effective (at least in the view of re-launching the economy and not only balancing public finances). This sense of continuity prevents to look at “Berlusconism” as a close (?) period in Italian history.

What does Berlusconi’s success reveal of Italy, according to Kappelin’s book? Basically, three aspects: the power of organised crime; the Catholic Church’s influence upon domestic politics and culture; the well-grounded male chauvinism.

The first two points (which particularly chapter sex, Maffian, and eight, Klockorna i Peterskyrkan, focuse on, although they are recurring issues all over the book) are frequently cause of embarrassments to Italians when talking with foreigners.

And indeed it would be unthinkable in Sweden – Kappelin is not so explicit, but the starting sentence of her book is: how come that Italians vote for Berlusconi? ? to pervert justice in the way Berlusconi did in Italy (by the notorious ad hoc laws, described in their origin and content in the chapter five, Konflikten med rättväsandet), and to witness powerless to the connivance between politics and criminality. This is due probably to a political tradition in Nordic countries which Henrik Berggren and Lars Trägårdh have described as a high degree of social trust, meant both as trust in other people, including strangers, and confidence in common institutions due to their transparency^[1].

However, Kappelin’s thesis is that what explains why a politician, who from a Swedish point of view is completely incomprehensible, has been so successful is, besides his relationship with organised crime on one hand and with the Catholic Church on the other hand (at least until the last sex affaires), male chauvinism: a key factor, the Swedish journalist stresses already in the Introduction, in understanding Italy’s decline, from the economic stagnation (now recession) to the lack of trust in the future. And in chapter one (Italien och Italienarna. En introduktion) Kappelin points out indeed that the country is like a journey back in time, in a masculine and sensual world, where “l’apparenza” (look)^[2] means all and where a downward compromise has been achieved between the individual and the State: as you (State) do not accomplish your duties towards me (citizen), I am not bound to accomplish mine towards you. It is the triumph of the “furbo” (cunning fellow)^[3].

With such a background, it is quite obvious that women have no chance, with few exceptions, to establish themselves as political and economic independent actors. Their unhappy fortune in Berlusconi’s Italy is the subject of chapter three (Madonnan, horan och Silvio Berlusconi): those that are good looking are reduced to nothing more than ornamental elements in a society ruled by old and unappeasable men and therefore appointed as parliamentary members and even ministers exactly because of their “apparenza”; the others, the common women, who are not mistresses of some sultan, are mostly doomed to insignificance in the economy and in politics.

Berlusconi, Kappelin insists on this point, has not invented male chauvinism, which on the contrary is well-grounded in the country’s culture; his sin with no redemption is to have turned this national inclination into a rule and the “velina”^[4] (young girls almost naked whose only task in Berlusconi’s TV programs is to shake their body in alluring ways) into the ideal model of womanhood.

And thus we come to another valuable contribution of Kappelin’s book, after the effective part on women’s role as mirror of Italy’s decadence (and again here we could remind that on the contrary Nordic countries are on the top in the world’s gender equality ratios): to the huge concentration of media power achieved by Berlusconi much attention is drawn upon (see particularly chapter four, Makten over medierna), but this problem is not presented at all as an Italian peculiarity. Rather, Kappelin warns that also countries which have repeatedly condemned Berlusconi for his conflict of interest have no safe defence against such a risk.

The final part of the book focuses on how Berlusconi has changed Italian political style, turning electoral campaigns into sales where even the promise of one million – and not half a million, as Kappelin writes – new jobs can be sold to people in search of an encouraging fairy-tale, with immigrants welcomed as scapegoats (chapter nine, Dragkampen i Italien – resultat och misslyckanden), and on the dangerous meeting between authoritarian democracy and media populism (chapter ten, Auktoritär demokrati och medial populism). No one before Berlusconi, Kappelin points out, had dared to draw a comparison between Mussolini and himself with a kind of self-congratulation. But what the author argues is not that the founder of “Forza Italia” is the new Mussolini: the difference is that the latter aimed at building a new Italian, whilst the former is satisfied with the existing one. The point is rather that the centre-right parties, with Berlusconi in the forefront, have taken over and reverted the “cultural hegemony” based since 1945 on antifascism as the key-source of national identity, and have systematically put down liberal institutions (starting from parliamentary and judicial powers) – and politics itself.

In this perspective, Berlusconi’s Italy appears as a political laboratory for the whole Europe. This is the somehow not expected conclusion from a non-Italian author, which enables the book to be not only a commented review of stereotypes about Italians (and about differences between Northern and Southern Europe), but a more demanding reflection about possible future developments of democracy at an international level. Out of Italy many have laughed when seeing Berlusconi’s blunders and listening to his hymn (“Meno male che Silvio c’è”), but – Kappelin warns – his “style” has become a model for a new generation of right-wing politicians, starting from David Cameron in the UK.

Thus it is not easy to get rid of Berlusconism as though it were a mere interlude in Italian history, perhaps cherishing the always comfortable thesis that it has been a further demonstration of the Gattopardo’s core idea: in Italy everything is to be changed so that nothing changes. On the contrary, Berlusconi, this is Kappelin’s conclusion, has substantially changed the way Italians look at themselves – and at the the others – as well as the ways of contemporary politics. And it will take time to go back to previous ones – or to find something new.

[1] See H. Berggren, L. Trägårdh, Social Trust and Radical Individualism. The Paradox at the Heart of Nordic Capitalism, in The Nordic Way, Stockholm, Global Utmaning, 2010, pp. 18-19.

[2] In Italian in the book, see p. 18.

[3] In Italian in the book, see p. 29.

[4] The book has been written before the “Ruby affaire”.

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Kristina Kappelin, Berlusconi – Italienaren (Stockholm: Brombergs, 2010)