Beneficial social and economic exchange relies on a certain level of trust. But trust is a delicate matter, not least in the former socialist countries where illegitimate behaviour by governments made distrust a habit. The chapters in this volume analyze the causes and the effects of the lack of social trust in post socialist countries. The contributions originated in the Collegium Budapest project on Honesty and Trust: Theory and Experience in the Light of the Post Socialist Transition. A second volume entitled, Building a Trustworthy State in Post Socialist Transition, is being published simultaneously. GABRIEL BADESCU Associate Professor of Political Science at the Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania ILDIK BARNA Research Assistant at E/tv/s Lorand University, Hungary KAREN S. COOK Ray Lyman Wilbur Professor of Sociology and the Cognizant Dean of the Social Sciences at Stanford University, California, USA GYRGY CSEPELI Professor of Sociology at the E/tv/s University, Hungary ALEXANDRA GERBASI Ph.D candidate at Stanford University, California, USA ALENA V. LEDENEVA Reader in Russian Politics and Society, University College, London, UK ANTAL RKNY Professor of Sociology at the E/tv/s Lorand University, Hungary KATHARINA PISTOR Associate Professor of law at Columbia Law School, New York, USA VADIM RADAEV Professor of the Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia ERIC R. W. RICE Sociologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, USA MARTIN RAISER Director for Country Strategy and Analysis at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Deve lopment (EBRD), London, UK ALAN ROUSSO Senior Political Counsellor at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), London, UK FRANKLIN STEIN Political Analyst at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), London, UK MRIA SZKELYI Professor of sociology at the Institute of Sociology of E/tv/s Lorand University, Hungary ERIC M. USLANER Professor of Government at Politics at the University of Maryland, College Park, USA FEDERICO VARESE University Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Oxford, UK VADIM VOLKOV Chair of the Sociology Department of the High School of Economics, St. Petersburg Branch, Russia CHRISTOPHER WOODRUFF Associate Professor of Economics at the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific States