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: Suggested Citation
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