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Strategies for nurturing trust in the wider Black Sea region

There is no absolute measure of security in international relations. A situation that one actor perceives as threatening, does not appear that to someone else in a similar situation. Security is essentially about subjective judgements and therefore the role of psychology should not be ignored in security studies. Trust influences the ways states and other actors behave towards each other. This concluding article considers different strategies for managing distrust and building trust in such a way that enhances fragile stability and security and encourages peaceful cooperation between different actors in the wider Black Sea region. Managed distrust means that distrust between actors is under control in such a way that a full-blown conflict is unlikely and that some restricted and carefully monitored cooperation to advance mutual goals is possible between the distrustful actors – be they states or non-state actors. The article starts with analytical consideration of the regional context and then summarizes the current trust-related policies discussed in the empirical case studies included in this volume. Finally, potentially effective trust-building strategies in the region will be considered.