Economic indicators dominate discussions of national progress. GDP, employment and income growth are measured, reported and compared. They describe something important and leave out something that may matter just as much: whether people trust the institutions around them, whether they feel they have a stake in decisions, and whether the society holds together across its divisions. The UN’s World Social Report examines these questions of trust, cohesion and inclusion, and argues that they are not soft add-ons to development but conditions of it.
Why trust matters economically
Trust lowers the cost of everything. Where people trust contracts to be honoured, businesses can deal with strangers without elaborate safeguards. Where they trust public institutions, they pay taxes and comply with rules. Where they trust each other, communities solve problems without waiting for the state. High-trust societies tend to have lower transaction costs and more effective public goods. This is why trust is treated as a form of social capital rather than a private sentiment.
What social cohesion means
Cohesion is the degree to which a society holds together: whether groups share a sense of belonging, whether differences are managed without violence, and whether people believe the system treats them fairly. It is not the absence of disagreement; healthy societies disagree constantly. It is the presence of institutions and norms that allow disagreement to be resolved without breaking the whole. Measuring it is difficult, which is one reason it is often left out of national accounts.
The drivers of declining trust
Trust falls when institutions are seen as corrupt, unresponsive or captured by elites. It falls when inequality widens and people conclude the rules are rigged. It falls when public services fail the people who need them most. And it can fall through polarisation, as media and political competition reward division. These drivers reinforce each other: corruption feeds inequality, inequality feeds distrust, distrust makes collective action harder, and the cycle continues.
Inequality and the social contract
The social contract is the implicit bargain between people and the state: contributions in exchange for protection and services. When the bargain is seen as unfair, when the wealthy avoid taxes, when elites capture public spending, when hard work does not lead to security, the contract weakens. People withdraw, whether by evading taxes, avoiding formal work, or disengaging from civic life. The result is a state with fewer resources and less legitimacy, which struggles further.
Participation as a condition
Cohesion depends on people feeling they have a voice. Participation, in elections, in local decisions, in unions and associations, is how that voice is exercised. Where participation is restricted or appears meaningless, trust erodes even if material conditions improve. This is why the report treats civic space and democratic institutions as development questions, not only political ones. A society that grows richer while excluding its people from decisions may find its gains fragile.
Measuring what is hard to measure
Trust and cohesion are measured through surveys: questions about confidence in institutions, sense of belonging, perceptions of fairness. These are imperfect, responses are shaped by context and wording, but they reveal patterns that economic data miss. A country can post strong growth and falling confidence at the same time, and the combination is a warning. The difficulty of measurement is a reason to be careful, not a reason to ignore it.
Technology and the new public square
Digital platforms have changed how people encounter one another and how information circulates. They can connect communities and they can amplify division, because engagement-based systems reward content that provokes. The effect on cohesion is contested, but the mechanism is clear: when the public square is optimised for attention rather than understanding, the shared factual basis that cohesion requires becomes harder to maintain. Any modern discussion of social cohesion has to include the digital environment.
What policy can do
If trust and cohesion matter, several levers follow: reduce corruption and make institutions accountable; ensure public services reach everyone; design tax and spending to narrow unjust gaps; protect civic space and participation; and address the information environment. None of these is a quick fix, and each is contested. Together they describe a different theory of development than the one that looks only at growth.
Migration, diversity and belonging
Cohesion is tested most sharply where societies become more diverse through migration. Diversity is not itself a threat to trust; the evidence suggests that how institutions handle it matters far more than the fact of it. Where newcomers have clear paths to work, housing and legal status, and where public services are shared rather than segregated, cohesion tends to hold. Where integration is neglected and political actors compete to stoke division, trust can fall quickly. The policy choices, not the demographic facts, determine the outcome.
References
Image: Stanley Howe · CC BY-SA 2.0 · via Wikimedia Commons.