Institutionalizing trust: Kennedy, Khrushchev and the Establishment of the Moscow-Washington Hotline

Past research in international relations has established that developing trust between leaders of states locked into a mistrust-based adversarial relationship can help foster trust-based interaction at the interstate level.... [ view full abstract ]

Past research in international relations has established that developing trust between leaders of states locked into a mistrust-based adversarial relationship can help foster trust-based interaction at the interstate level. However, the positive effects of such interpersonal trust are temporary, given the frequent replacement of leaders through elections, retirement, coup or death. When a new leader comes to office, trust-building must start from scratch and trust may or may not flourish in the new leadership dyad. This project asks if there is any way around the transience of leader-to-leader trust so that adversarial states may enjoy at least some of the benefits of interpersonal trust in the long term. Drawing on the Business Studies literature, this project proposes that institutionalizing interpersonal trust provides mechanisms that help the benefits of leader-to-leader trust to survive. Tracing the development of the Kennedy-Khrushchev relationship through distrust, asymmetrical trust, betrayal and then mutual trust, this project argues that the Moscow-Washington Hotline was one such institution-based trust mechanism that ensured the survival of interpersonal trust President Kennedy and Khrushchev had built.