In the preceding chapters we have indicated how the development of different types of patron–client relations – of the fully fledged clientelistic relations and of those patron–client relations which constitute addenda to the major institutional nexus – is very closely related to different modes of structuring of trust in the respective societies in which these relations develop. In chapter 7 we have also pointed out that, on the whole, these forms of structuring of trust tend to persist beyond manifold changes in the structure of the division of labour and beyond various, if not all, modifications in the structure of power relations in societies.

These modes of structuring of trust are, however, manifest not only in patron–client relations but also in other types of interpersonal relations to which we have referred at the beginning of this book – as in blood brotherhood, pseudo-kinship and the like, and in the great variety of bonds which have been classed in different societies as friendship. Indeed the analysis of the nature of the construction of trust in patron–client relations, presented at the end of chapter 6, pointed out the necessity of considering how these other types of interpersonal relations are connected to such a construction in clientelistic and non-clientelistic societies. It is only when we take into consideration all these different types of interpersonal relations, as they develop in the various societies, that we can assess the problems and vicissitudes of the construction of trust in such settings.