Henry Farrell

Trust, Institutions and Institutional Evolution: Industrial Districts and the Social Capital Hypothesis – with Jack Knight

Much current work in the social sciences seeks to understand the effects of trust and social capital on economic and political outcomes. However, the sources of trust remain unclear. In this article, the authors articulate a basic theory of the relationship between institutions and trust. The authors apply this theory to industrial districts, geographically concentrated areas of small firm production, which involve extensive cooperation in the production process. Changes in power relations affect patterns of production;the authors suggest that they also have knock-on consequences for trust and cooperation among actors.

Henry Farrell and Jack Knight (2003), “Trust, Institutions and Institutional Evolution: Industrial Districts and the Social Capital Hypothesis,” Politics and Society, 31, 4:537-556.

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Other Writing:

Academic Article

Interorganizational Cooperation and Intraorganizational Power: Early Agreements under Codecision and Their Impact on the Parliament and the Council – with Adrienne Hèritier

December 9, 2004 Comparative Political Studies 37 with Adrienne Hèritier
The authors argue that closer attention should be paid to the interorganizational rules of decision making and their implications for intraorganizational processes. They claim that exogenous changes in macro-institutional rules, which result in a move from formal and sequential to informal and simultaneous interaction between collective actors, will lead to changes in individual actors’ respective ...
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Chapter in an Edited Volume

“Privacy in the Digital Age: States, Private Actors and Hybrid Arrangements,” in Governing Global Electronic Networks: International Perspectives on Power and Policy – eds. William Drake and Ernest Wilson

December 5, 2008 eds. William Drake and Ernest Wilson The MIT Press: 2008
Privacy has emerged as a key regulatory issue in the wake of the information and communications revolution. New technologies have brought new problems; they have made it more difficult for individuals to maintain their privacy (or for other actors to protect it on their behalf), while also giving rise to complex issues of global regulation. ...
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