For most theorists, the concept of civil society extends beyond institutions to include specific, constitutive values, and among the most important of those values is trust. Adam Seligman (1992: 147), for example, observed that “the concept of social trust is essential to any idea of civil society, in the West as in the East.” Although many scholars and pundits have assumed otherwise (e.g., Fukuyama 1995), both surveys and experiments consistently demonstrate that levels of general trust in people and society are not high in Japan. In fact, they are appreciably lower in Japan than in the United States. Why are Americans more trustful than Japanese, and what are the implications of this difference? I seek to answer this question by means of empirical research, and I conclude that different kinds of social intelligence are adaptive in American and Japanese society. Driven by a variety of factors, including economic trends such as globalization, Japanese society is changing, however, and with it the incentives that advantage different kinds of social intelligence, their attendant attitudes of trust, and the resulting shape of civil society. In sum, Japan is moving from a security-based society in which individuals pursue cautious, commitment-forming strategies to a trust-based society in which individuals pursue more open, opportunity-seeking strategies.

Are Japanese More Trustful Than Americans?

It is often claimed that business practices in Japan are based on trust to a much greater degree than in the West, where business practices are more heavily based on contracts.