Farm Parents' Attitudes Towards Farm Safety Experts*

Abstract Using both qualitative and quantitative data, this article analyzes farm parents' attitudes towards the trustworthiness, usefulness, and use of advice from farm safety experts. The article evaluates four different perspectives on trust in expert: the Validity of Knowledge perspective, the Salient Values Similarity perspective, the Diffusion of Innovation perspective, and the Local Knowledge perspective. Among other factors, the results show that negative attitudes towards experts are strongly influenced by attitudes towards the validity of scientific knowledge vs. farm experience. They also show that experts who are more involved in farm production have higher levels of trust and usefulness. While all of the perspectives receive some degree of support, the results suggest that local knowledge and culture are critical in shaping attitudes towards experts. Attitudes towards experts are shaped not solely by expert characteristics but by the meanings and significance they assume in specific socio‐cultural contexts.     

In—Credible Government: Legitimacy, Democracy, and Non-Governmental Organizations

This article analyses emerging trans-global networks of governance that are coming to light within a post-democratic form of governance that relies upon specific technologies of credibility building, as opposed to universalistic mechanisms of representation. Using the NGO sector as a model, and using examples from fieldwork conducted in the unraveled contexts of Bosnia and Croatia, and the unraveling context of Ecuador over the past decade, we show how intervention within the global south and post conflict realms, although often couched using such master terms as democracy, development and freedom, are in fact geared towards the generation of political legitimacy and influence through relationships based upon the exchange of credibility.