Latov Y.V. Transformation of social capital of Russian society. In: Russian society and challenges of the time. Book Eight

Abstract

The overall assessment of the level achieved by 2024 and the long-term (2014-2024) dynamics of trust characteristics is ambivalent. While institutional trust certainly grew in 2022-2024 (and significantly more so than in 2014-2016) and played a role in social capital (taking into account the previously stated caveats), interpersonal trust has increased less articulately, and its "capitalization" is questionable. Therefore, the answers to the initial questions—whether trust has been growing and capitalized during the last "crisis" decade—will be ambiguous. They are clearly positive with respect to the characteristics of institutional trust and rather tentative with respect to interpersonal trust. It should be noted, however, that institutional trust, unlike interpersonal trust, is more sensitive to socio-political conditions, so that with a weakening of external pressure in the future, trust in institutions may decline, as already occurred in 2017-2021. At the same time, regardless of forecasts for the future, it can be argued that the “crisis” decade as a whole did not destroy the analyzed characteristics of Russians’ social capital, but rather strengthened them.