Description
This chapter investigates how trusting becomes institutionalized. By moving beyond models that emphasize trust as a psychological or interpersonal phenomenon, the study introduces three analytical shifts necessary for understanding the institutionalization of trust: from trust-building to trust-maintenance, from individual relationships to impersonal devices, and from deliberate choices to routine practices. It uses an illustrative, empirical, historical case from the realm of International Relations, the Moscow-Washington hotline between the United States and the Soviet Union as a “trust device” established and used to prevent, first and foremost, nuclear war. Overall, the chapter contributes a process-based integration of prior work on trusting and institutions.
