Political Trust of Emerging Elites and Initial Conditions: The Effect of Varieties of Socialism

32 Pages Posted: 4 Sep 2008 Last revised: 25 Mar 2009

Date Written: March 21, 2009

Abstract

This paper, unlike the vast existing literature on political trust, focuses on trust in post-socialist countries, and more specifically on their emerging elites, rather than on their general populations. Studying emerging elites is important in the context of establishing democracy and the survival of democracy. We stipulate that political trust is significantly determined by historical legacy: type of socialist regime, accounting for path dependence and thus, for pre-socialist legacies. Utilizing individual-level data from an institutional survey, we find that distinguishing between different types of socialism is instrumental in explaining trust of emerging elites. Our findings have implications for policies aimed at fostering political trust in post-socialist countries and more importantly for discerning future patterns of political and social developments.

Keywords: Political trust, Socialism, initial conditions, participation, emerging elites, young people

JEL Classification: O57, P20, P39

Suggested Citation

Dimitrova-Grajzl, Valentina P. and Simon, Eszter, Political Trust of Emerging Elites and Initial Conditions: The Effect of Varieties of Socialism (March 21, 2009). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1263248 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1263248

Valentina P. Dimitrova-Grajzl (Contact Author)

Virginia Military Institute ( email )

Department of Economics and Business
Scott Shipp Hall
Lexington, VA 24450
United States

Eszter Simon

Central European University ( email )

Nador utca 9
Budapest, H-1051
Hungary

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