Trust and Governance: Untangling A Tangled Web

Using a simple but general formalization, we state the conditions under which one might expect a negative or positive relationship between preexisting trust and governance complexity, and whether crowding out or complementarity arguments are necessary for such outcomes. Our analysis provides a platform for simple but rigorous analysis of other possible relationships between trust and governance and also suggests that the debate about the relationship between governance and trust could be fruitfully redirected through greater attention to the analytical structure of the arguments.