Zwang und Vertrauen im Konflikt

Abstract
Coercion and trust seem to be mutually exclusive. Someone who can trust another person does not need coercive threats unless there are reasons to be suspicious and no longer trust them. On the other hand, a person who believes that she is trusted will be irritated and doubt the relationship of trust as soon as she is met with coercive threats. At second glance, however, it seems questionable whether this disjunction applies in the sense of strict exclusivity. After a conceptual clarification of the concept of coercion, Niklas Luhmann’s analysis of the concept of trust is used to show that coercion is destructive for relationships of trust when it is applied directly, but can become a condition that enables and stabilizes trust if the possibility of coercion remains latent and in the background. Of course, this presupposes that the coercion is institutionalized, i. e. delegated to a third party who applies the coercion in a predictable and not arbitrary manner. This means that in addition to the horizontal trust between the partners in a trust relationship, there is also vertical trust towards a third party required.