Much of social structure can be explained as a response to obstacles to resolving problems of cooperation and coordination through simple individual-to-individual trust. Indeed, Hobbes' political theory addresses the need for government to back cooperative life when trust relationships without such coercive backing would be inadequate to the task. In contexts in which individual-to-individual trust commonly fails, we find institutional and cultural arrangements that make life work more or less well in lieu of trust. These devices often work by securing trustworthiness on the part of those with whom we must deal, even though epistemological and time constraints may keep us from knowing enough to assess their trustworthiness or to trust them.

DEFINE: Introduced the concept that social structures and institutions function as substitutes for trust-based cooperation.

Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, loc. 787