Trust, social order and knowledge: sociological perspectives on the nature and function of trust in late modern societies

Society in our times is characterised by high complexity, formalized control systems and extensive use of abstract and specialised knowledge. What role does trust play in such societies? And what kind of trust is in play? While there is much recent social science scholarship on trust, trust is rarely an explicit topic in classical sociology. In this article I highlight some classical sociological theoretical discussions of foundational questions and show how trust may be an (implicit) part of these discussions. By pointing to Durkheim's, Simmel's and Luhmann's approaches to trust, particularly in situations of lack of knowledge or abundance of it, we can add to our understanding of the nature and function of trust in late modern societies. By further drawing on empirical examples from research on systems for civil service recruitment and evaluation of academic quality, I demonstrate how systems of trust pragmatically become key to managing complexity and knowledge abundance. However, these systems of trust also come with challenging unintended consequences.