The contract or audit may protect a relationship against the worst of all risks it might entail, thereby enabling the parties to cooperate on less risky matters. This is a milder and more specific variant of the central argument in Hobbes’ theory of political order. The threat of sanctions to protect each makes all better off. Hobbes’ sovereign enforces order in the protection of life and property. Once these are secured, we have less reason to be defensive, and we engage in productive investments and beneficial exchanges.

XREF: Connects to Hobbes' Leviathan and broader social contract theory — the enforcement machinery that underwrites trust and cooperation.

Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, loc. 254