Rather, it depends (and in ways which perhaps extend with comparative ease to some other species) on the presence or absence of relatively well-founded expectations about the conduct of others — expectations which can serve, until too harshly violated, as premises for partially cooperative conduct of one's own. What the root conception consists in is a picture of the conditional meshing of mutual interaction.

DEFINE: Clarifies the 'root conception' of cooperation as conditional meshing of mutual expectations, not mere rule-following.

Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking…, loc. 1158