This chapter lays further conceptual foundation for the book’s proposed trust-based framework. It applies to the citizen-government relationship what I call the ‘network conception of trust’ from the social science scholarship. In doing so, it makes a claim of how trust functions in the social rights context. According to this conception, trust arises in, and depends on, complex structures or networks of relationships. Applying this conception to the citizen-government relationship, the chapter argues that in contemporary democracies, the citizen-government relationship arises in a network of relationships and that trust in the citizen-government relationship depends on the relationships that constitute the network – including, importantly, the relationship between citizens and the courts that arises out of the adjudication of social rights by courts. This argument adds nuance to our understanding of trust and lays foundation for my contention in Chapter 4 that the courts, via their enforcement of social rights, can foster citizens’ trust in the elected branches.