This chapter lays the grounds of a sociology of trust contestation. Independently of whether we prefer to follow a rational choice or a cultural explanation of trust, the act of trust-building requires people to engage in communication with each other. Trust is not an individual attitude of the trust-giver, when relating to others, but a resource that can be used independently by social actors to intensify, repair or even break up social relationships. Trust is what happens in between. It is part of the infrastructure of modern society that facilitates indirect social relationships and that takes mainly a communicative form. As such, trust can only be experienced and activated when it is communicated not simply as interpersonal but, above all, as long-distance and intercultural communication. Based on such a communicative understanding of trust and distrust, I will turn to normative political theory to discuss the intrinsic relationship between social and political trust and democracy. The binding force of trust can be explained a basic commitment among humans that raises expectations in future cooperation. Shared normative expectations are, however, also a critical yardstick that inform people when it is better to distrust. Trust and distrust play in this sense complementary functions in democracy. I will use these insights to introduce different ‘philosophies of trust and distrust’ that are distinguished by possible normative choices of (1) priming trust over distrust, (2) seeking a balance between trust and distrust and (3) priming distrust over trust.