Title:
The Relation between Economic Globalization and Trust in the Generalized Other: an Empirical Analysis in the OECD Countries

Abstract:
This paper aims to develop and empirically verify, through theoretical references and a secondary data analysis, an hypothesis about the relation between the economic globalization and the generalized trust in people - this latter as an important aspect of macro social capital concept - for the OECD countries. As a first step the globalization phenomenon will be analyzed, stressing the importance and the impact of the economic significance and the fact that this element has consequences also at a sociocultural and political level, becoming an explosive trend in regard to the first modernity social milieu. The social capital concept will be later briefly introduced in its three possible analysis levels, focusing on the meaning of the concept as a feature that inheres to a macro social system, like the national one; the elements of this macro dimension, especially the trust in the generalized other, will be highlighted. After this outline of the theoretical framework, a secondary data analysis will be proposed to allow a comparison among the thirty OECD nations, in order to evaluate how the trust in generalized other in 2000 is related to a different economic globalization rate in 1995; there will be also an evaluation of the national wealth and industrialization influence on the above mentioned relation. If data about generalized trust in people in 1990 and economic globalization in 1985 will be available, the same regression model will be studied. Finally some reflections on the results, on their limits and on their possible interpretations will be suggested and a future research work will be proposed