CFP: Monist: Trust and Democracy

Submissions due January 2015.  Here’s the call:

The role of trust in democracies is typically taken for granted: democracies are successful if and only if they are underpinned by widespread trust relations among their citizens. When citizens trust each other, and when they trust their political leaders, citizens will voluntarily comply with the rules and regulations that govern their lives; in other words, they will cooperate to bring about the benefits typically attributed to living under democratic rule.  One measure of widespread trust is the willingness of citizens to participate in civil society organizations where they learn to cooperate and therefore to trust others. This special issue of The Monist will focus on the relationship between trust and democracy, for example as outlined by scholars such as Robert Putnam, Pierre Rosanvallon, and Mark Warren. Contributors are asked to focus on questions including but not limited to the following: Is trust essential to democracy? Is trust the right concept with which to explain effective democratic performance, or are other factors (for example, social capital) better suited to do so? How does trust enable democracy to function?

Interested authors should be in touch with Patti Lenard at: [email protected]

For more on the Monist, see: http://www.themonist.com/calls-for-papers