A colonial power deliberately destroyed trust relations to sustain political control.

Evidence

Anthony Pagden (1988, 127) supposes that the conditions of Neapolitan society under Spanish rule until the eighteenth century suggest answers to larger questions about the necessary conditions for economic growth and social development in the early modern world. After the revolt of 1647, the Habsburgs deliberately worked to destroy trust relations in order merely to maintain control (until Naples passed to Austria under Bourbon rule in 1738). — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 836

Categorization

• QUESTION: Worth chasing: what specific mechanisms did Habsburg rule use to dismantle trust, and how long did the damage persist after 1738? The deliberate, strategic destruction of trust as a governance tool is a provocative contrast to the usual assumption that rulers cultivate trust.
• XREF: connects to: Global power deliberately dismantles rooted community bonds to stay fluid and invincible — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration: A New Theory of…, 595