TY - JOUR
T1 - Trust, distrust and skepticism
T2 - Popular evaluations of civil and political institutions in post-communist societies
AU - Mishler, William
AU - Rose, Richard
N1 - Funding Information:
This is a revised version of a paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Southern Political Science Association, Tampa, Florida, November 1995. The authors appreciate the generosity of the Paul Lazarsfeld Society, Vienna, for permitting use of the data from the third annual New Democracies Barometer (NDB). The NDB is sponsored by the Austrian Federal Ministry for Science and Research and the Austrian National Bank. Research support also was provided by the National Science Foundation (SBR-09515079) and by grants from the University of Strathclyde.
PY - 1997/5
Y1 - 1997/5
N2 - Popular trust in social and political institutions is vital to the consolidation of democracy, but in post-Communist Europe, distrust is the predicted legacy of Communist rule. Contrary to expectations, however, New Democracies Barometer surveys of popular trust in fifteen institutions across nine Eastern and Central European countries indicate that skepticism, rather than distrust, predominates. Although trust varies across institutions and countries, citizens trust holistically, evaluating institutions along a single dimension. Both early life socialization experiences and contemporary performance evaluations influence levels of trust. The legacy of socialization under Communism has mostly indirect effects, whereas the effects of economic and political performance evaluations on trust are larger and more direct. Thus, skepticism reflects trade-offs between public dissatisfaction with current economic performance, optimism about future economic performance, and satisfaction with the political performance of contemporary institutions in providing greater individual liberties than in the Communist past.
AB - Popular trust in social and political institutions is vital to the consolidation of democracy, but in post-Communist Europe, distrust is the predicted legacy of Communist rule. Contrary to expectations, however, New Democracies Barometer surveys of popular trust in fifteen institutions across nine Eastern and Central European countries indicate that skepticism, rather than distrust, predominates. Although trust varies across institutions and countries, citizens trust holistically, evaluating institutions along a single dimension. Both early life socialization experiences and contemporary performance evaluations influence levels of trust. The legacy of socialization under Communism has mostly indirect effects, whereas the effects of economic and political performance evaluations on trust are larger and more direct. Thus, skepticism reflects trade-offs between public dissatisfaction with current economic performance, optimism about future economic performance, and satisfaction with the political performance of contemporary institutions in providing greater individual liberties than in the Communist past.
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U2 - 10.1017/S0022381600053512
DO - 10.1017/S0022381600053512
M3 - Review article
AN - SCOPUS:0031486877
SN - 0022-3816
VL - 59
SP - 418
EP - 451
JO - Journal of Politics
JF - Journal of Politics
IS - 2
ER -