Trust can either be conceived of as a social glue in its own right, or as a constitutive element of a larger societal syndrome, termed social cohesion. This contribution takes the latter perspective, analyzing social trust and trust in institutions as integral parts of social cohesion more generally. Despite ongoing worries about the state of social cohesion in contemporary societies, surprisingly little is known as to which macro-level conditions actually weaken social cohesion, and which foster it. It remains an open question whether social cohesion is shaped by universal social forces that work similarly in various world regions, or by region-specific ones (the same holds true for outcomes of social cohesion). Against this background, the present paper seeks to advance our understanding of correlates of social cohesion by systematically comparing Western and Asian societies. The empirical analysis is based on the most comprehensive index of social cohesion currently available, the Bertelsmann Social Cohesion Radar. In separate analyses of 34 Western and 22 Asian societies, the authors explore the associations of economic, social, political, and cultural conditions with cohesion, as well as the associations between cohesion and population well-being. The results suggest that while some correlates (such as economic prosperity) can indeed be considered universal, others (e.g. income inequality, political freedom) work differently in Western and Asian societies. The authors link these findings to sociological and cross-cultural psychological theories on Asian modernization and Asian values. The practical conclusion is that not all policy recommendations for strengthening social cohesion can easily travel from one world region to another.

中文翻译：

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社会凝聚力及其相关因素：西方和亚洲社会的比较

信任既可以被视为一种社会粘合剂，也可以被视为更大的社会综合症（称为社会凝聚力）的构成要素。这一贡献采用了后一种观点，将社会信任和对机构的信任分析为更普遍的社会凝聚力的组成部分。尽管人们对当代社会的社会凝聚力状况持续担忧，但令人惊讶的是，对于哪些宏观条件实际上削弱了社会凝聚力，哪些会促进了它，却知之甚少。社会凝聚力是由在世界各地区发挥相似作用的普遍社会力量塑造的，还是由特定地区的社会力量塑造的，这仍然是一个悬而未决的问题（社会凝聚力的结果也是如此）。在此背景下，本论文试图通过系统地比较西方和亚洲社会来增进我们对社会凝聚力相关因素的理解。实证分析基于目前可用的最全面的社会凝聚力指数，即贝塔斯曼社会凝聚力雷达。在对 34 个西方社会和 22 个亚洲社会的单独分析中，作者探索了经济、社会、政治和文化条件与凝聚力的关联，以及凝聚力与人口福祉之间的关联。结果表明，虽然某些相关因素（例如经济繁荣）确实可以被认为是普遍的，但其他相关因素（例如收入不平等、政治自由）在西方和亚洲社会中的作用不同。作者将这些发现与关于亚洲现代化和亚洲价值观的社会学和跨文化心理学理论联系起来。实际的结论是，并非所有加强社会凝聚力的政策建议都可以轻松地从一个世界地区传播到另一个地区。