Determinants of Public Trust Towards Major Political Institutions in Countries with Economies in Transition and in the Oecd Countries: the Comparative Analysis
Abstract: The attitudes of citizens of countries with economies in transition toward the main political institutions in those countries has been formed in the last 20-25 years, when these institutions either emerged or completely transformed in such countries. At the same time, the attitude of residents of more economically developed countries toward the political institutions has been formed over a much longer period of time. Are the determinants of residents' trust such as education, age, income, gender, marital status, and social status in countries with economies in transition the same as those in economically developed countries. This article presents empirical evidence, introducing results obtained using the data from the fifth wave of the World Values Survey. To identify individual determinants of trust, ordered logit models were established. The dependent variables were the answers to the questions "How much do you trust the government” etc. The abovementioned characteristics of individuals were used as independent variables together with two macroeconomic indicators for entire nations: PPP GDP per capita and the CPI. The most interesting of the results obtained were as follows. In countries with economies in transition, the availability of higher education reduces the credibility of the main political institutions (although the opposite was found to be true for some institutions in OECD countries). The degree of confidence increases with individual personal income, but in transition countries with lower GDP per capita, the level of trust is higher (whereas this is not the case in OECD countries). The main results have been used to generate policy suggestions.
