The purpose of this article is to analyze theoretical approaches to the concept of social trust, to assess the level of confidence, to show its role in the modernization and development of the region. According to the author, trust is a set of socially responsible and socially confirmed expectations of individuals in relation to other individuals, organizations, institutions, rules and regulations that constitute the fundamental content of life and support sustainability and cohesion of society. Based on the popular typology of trust proposed by Anthony Giddens, the author analyzes the state of institutional trust in the Vologda Oblast. Using the data of the public opinion monitoring carried out by ISEDT RAS, the article analyzes the Vologda Oblast residents’ trust in major political institutions. The author identifies factors that generate trust, studies the composition of the groups of people according to trust, and shows the effects of a low level of institutional trust. They are manifested in the lower level of social activity and in the fact that the people are not ready to unite and interact with each other. Besides, the author points out that civil society is atomized. The article also raises the problem of low efficiency of the structures of civil society, despite the fact that there is a significant amount of NCОs in the region, according to the statistics. Based on the data of ISEDT RAS polls, the article points out an extremely low assessment of performance of NCOs, a low involvement of citizens in their activities and a low level of awareness concerning the existence and activities of these organizations. The author notes that the development of the region, and implementation of effective modernization on its territory require not only assessment of available social resources and, first of all, social capital, the main indicator of which is the trust, but also the development of targeted policy to increase the level of trust in the regional community, to overcome the factors that generate and support a culture of distrust
Keywords
region, modernization, trust, institutional trust, distrust culture