The effect of generalised trust on environmental group membership is investigated from a collective action perspective. A cross-national analysis is conducted. It shows a robust and consistent, positive effect of generalised trust on environmental group membership. Drawing on an existing model...

The aim of this paper is to explore whether the concept of social capital as popularized by Robert Putnam is a good social science concept. Taken Gerring’s work on concept evaluation as the starting point, the paper first presents a set of criteria for conceptual ‘goodness’ and discusses...

Trustworthy eco-labels provide consumers with valuable information on environmentally friendly products and thus promote green consumerism. But what makes an eco-label trustworthy and what can government do to increase consumer confidence? The scant existing literature indicates that low...

This article presents a new argument that links generalized social trust and collective action in situations with a large number of actors, who do not have specific information on each other. Generalized social trust enhances large-N cooperation through the social exchange heuristic, which...

Within the social capital literature it is often assumed that membership of voluntary associations causes generalized social trust and not the other way around. This study challenges this assumption by investigating if generalized social trust causes membership in a novel design that yields...