Can a collectivity be trustworthy on the encapsulated-interest account? Consider two very different strategically defined classes of groups: groups mobilized by coordination and groups mobilized for collective action (see further Hardin 1991a). Suppose a group is coordinated behind a leader, as happens with charismatic leaders, in response to what the leader wants it to do, as in the case of the seventeenth-century Sabbatai Sevi, "the mystical Messiah," who led a messianic movement in central Europe. Coordinators can commonly count on such a leader because they will withdraw support if the leader violates their mission, making it generally in the leader's interest to attempt to fulfill their expectations. Of course, the leader's interest in fulfilling that expectation can be trumped by changed incentives or preferences. So long as the leader has an interest in pursuing the goals behind which the followers are coordinated, however, he or she can be trusted and derives power from the coordination of the followers. It is limited power in the sense that it cannot be used for just any purpose. Rather, it can be used only for the group's purposes or mission (Hardin 1995, chapter 3). Coordination power therefore fits very well with the three-part relational account of trust.

DEFINE: Distinguishes groups mobilized by coordination from groups mobilized for collective action, and defines coordination power as limited to the group's mission.

Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, loc. 809