Cooperation is the shared action of individuals, groups, or countries who voluntarily participate to achieve a desired common goal or good. Cooperation promotes social order and solidarity and is based on reciprocity and trust. Émile Durkheim introduces a division into two basic types of solidarity in society - "mechanical solidarity" and "organic solidarity", in his book Division of Labor in Society (1893).  In societies of organic solidarity, which appear with the emergence of civilization, a complex division of labor is developing. Different experiences and functions in society lead to the creation of different personalities. The connection between individuals is based on different and complementary functions they perform, so this type of solidarity is called organic, because, as in a living organism, where each organ performs a specific function, effective cooperation is necessary for survival in this type of society. Since each person has a different function, there is a development of morality that promotes individualism in society, but individualism in which each person develops their own specificity, to better develop themselves and thus give the greatest contribution to the common good.

Peter Kropotkin, in Mutual Aid (1902), presents the evolutionary theory of cooperation and solidarity in social animals. He concluded that mutual aid exists in all of the most successful species and that mutual aid is the most important factor in evolution. The struggle for survival takes place, above all, in relation to other species, and not within the species. The species that have the greatest cooperation and mutual support between its members will have the greatest chances of survival and advancement. Mutual assistance leads to several positive effects in any species - increasing the ability of individuals to reach old age and accumulate experience, which leads to greater intellectual development and increases in the size and scope of social behavior, which, together, gives greater chances for survival and development. Both biological and social progress is achieved, mostly, through mutual support and cooperation, and not through conflicts and struggles. Social behavior originated, in the evolutionary sense, before the emergence of man, so man is naturally adapted to live in society without additional rules and regulations. Traditional societies, which lived in clans and tribes, possessed customs and taboos that ensured cooperation and mutual assistance between members of those societies.

In Cooperation Without Trust (2005), Karen Cook discusses how trust between actors affects the "power-dependence relations" (Emerson) that exist between them. She believes that the relations of social exchange (in marriage, at work, or in friendly relations) contain mutual dependence, which can be defined as a relationship of "encapsulated interest". The notion of encapsulated interests refers to the trust that one actor (individual or collective) places in another actor because he (or she or them) believes that the other actor accepts the interests of the first actor and unites those interests with his own interests. Cook believes that if there is unequal power in a relationship, it is difficult to develop trust because the relative power of the actors will affect the way they experience the relationship. This theoretical approach to the relationship of power and trust can be applied to individuals, as well as to relations between organizations or between states.

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