Confianza institucional y social: una relación insoslayable

Abstract

Las instituciones son las encargadas de promover, regular y garantizar la acción social coordinada entre los ciudadanos. Desde hace varias décadas la confianza institucional ha ido descendiendo. Esto genera un problema importante, ya que la confianza institucional es necesaria para la formación de instituciones. Dentro de las consecuencias negativas que esto trae aparejado baja confianza social. El objetivo de este trabajo es analizar la relación entre la confianza institucional y la confianza social en el contexto argentino, los niveles de confianza, y la relación entre la confianza y eficacia institucional. Para ello se elaboró un cuestionario auto-administrado que se aplicó a 316 estudiantes universitarios de cuatro universidades públicas y privadas de la Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires. Los resultados indican que los participantes tienen una baja confianza institucional y social, que hay una relación entre la confianza institucional y la confianza social general, y finalmente, que la confianza institucional está condicionada por la percepción de eficacia de las instituciones.The institutions are responsible to promote, regulate and guarantee the coordinated social action among citizens. For decades the institutional trust has been declining. This creates a major problem because institutional trust is necessary for the institutions development. Among the negative consequences that it brings, it is found that the low institutional trust is associated with low general social trust. Because of that, people feel insecure in their relationships with others and have pessimistic thoughts about the reliability of strangers, which affects social cohesion, cooperation, collective connection and tolerance between citizens, among other things. The aim of this paper is to analyze the relationship between social trust and institutional confidence in the Argentinean context, confidence levels, and the relationship between institutional trust and effectiveness. For these purposes, a selfadministered questionnaire was designed and applied to 316 college students from four public and private universities in the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, Argentina. The results indicate that participants have a low institutional and general social trust, there is a relationship between institutional trust and general social trust, and finally, that institutional confidence is influenced by the perception of institutions effectiveness. Despite this rather optimistic scenario, these results may help to identify the areas to start working out the problems of low levels of institutional and social trust. If the social confidence of Argentineans is greater than institutional trust, it should be strengthened these social ties as it will allow to improve social cohesion and participation, and believe that working together can improve and change the proper functioning of institutions. From this point, It is possible gradually increase the number of people as social networks. Also, as results shows from this research and previous ones, the Education in Argentina is an institution in which you trust, and it would be feasible to start and/or strengthen the process of change in educative centers. Although it is not an easy task, it is necessary for society to live better and more equitably.