Absence of centralized authority can foster trust and cohesion.

Evidence

Gellner - drawing on the Islamic world and the Soviet Union —- argues that anarchy, the absence of a centralized authority, can be productive rather than destructive of trust and cohesion. — Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking Cooperative…, 92

Categorization

• XREF: Challenges the Hobbesian reading the reader is building — suggests anarchy need not collapse into predation. Pairs with Gellner as a counterpoint to Saramago’s Hobbesian order, worth reconciling. — connects to: Polycentric governance favors locally adapted rules that reduce domination. — Adelin-Costin Dumitru, Forging the Resistive Republic: Social…, 77
• QUESTION: Why does anarchy produce cohesion in the Islamic world and USSR but predation in Saramago’s Portugal? What variable — shared norms, religion, prior trust stock — explains the divergence?