Popular trust in political institutions is vital to democracy, but in post-Communist countries, popular distrust for institutions is widespread, and prospects for generating increased political trust are uncertain given disagreements over its origins. Cultural theories emphasizing exogenous determinants of trust compete with institutional theories emphasizing endogenous influences, and both can be further differentiated into micro and macro variants. Competing hypotheses drawn from these theories are tested using data from 10 post-Communist countries in Eastern and Central Europe and the former Soviet Union. Aggregate data on economic and political performance are combined with survey data on interpersonal and political trust, political socialization experiences, and individual evaluations of national performance. Results strongly support the superiority of institutional explanations of the origins of political trust, especially micro-level explanations, while providing little support for either micro-cul...

What Are the Origins of Political Trust?: Testing Institutional and Cultural Theories in Post-communist Societies

Conventional views of African politics imply that Africans’ political opinions are based either on enduring cultural values or their positions in the social structure. In contrast, we argue that Africans form attitudes to democracy based upon what they learn about what it is and does. This learning hypothesis is tested against competing cultural, institutional, and structural theories to explain citizens’ demand for democracy (legitimation) and their perceived supply of democracy (institutionalization) with data from 12 Afrobarometer attitude surveys conducted between 1999 and 2001. A multilevel model that specifies and estimates the impacts of both individual- and national-level factors provides evidence of learning from three different sources. First, people learn about the content of democracy through cognitive awareness of public affairs. Second, people learn about the consequences of democracy through direct experience of the performance of governments and (to a lesser extent) the economy. Finally, people draw lessons about democracy from national political legacies. O n what basis do Africans form attitudes toward democracy? Conventional interpretations of African politics assume that people form their political opinions based on either enduring cultural values or fixed social circumstances. Analysts rarely consider that people may choose whether or not to support political regimes on the basis of what they learn about their content and consequences. By probing the origins of mass attitudes to democracy in sub-Saharan Africa, we extend the analysis of public opinion into understudied contexts and also contribute to an understanding of regime consolidation. Public attitudes toward democracy shape the prospects for regime consolidation through the process of political legitimation. Democracies become consolidated only when, in Linz and Stepan’s incisive turn of phrase, all significant elites and an overwhelming proportion of citizens see democracy as “the only game in town” (1996a, 15). In other words, a sustainable democracy requires citizens who demand democracy, a feature that can be measured in public attitude surveys.

/pdf/learning-about-democracy-in-africa-awareness-performance-and-4a7o2va0y9.pdf

Learning about democracy in Africa: Awareness, performance, and experience

Using data from a national public opinion survey carried out in the Soviet Union during November and December 1989, we explore two attitudes relevant to the revolutionary changes there: (1) attitudes toward change and political democracy and (2) attitudes toward a core component of socialist ideology, the locus of responsibility for social well-being (the state or individuals?). These variables are unrelated, with the sample relatively evenly divided among the intersecting cells of a cross tabulation. While social conflict may be mitigated by the small sizes of absolutely opposing groups, consensus may also be hard to reach. Ethnicity, education, income, age, party membership, and life satisfaction have important effects on these attitudes. We discuss how attitude patterns in our data may be related to the disintegration of the Soviet Union and to problems faced by the independent successor states as they develop new institutions and foster new values.

Redefining the Political System of the USSR: Mass Support for Political Change

The mass public in the Soviet Union is not enthusiastic about free-market reform How, then, do citizens in a former communist regime develop an appreciation for free-market reforms? Different explanations for attitudes toward free market reforms are tested using data from a survey of the European USSR conducted in May 1990 First, negative assessments of recent economic performance is a catalyst for popular support for the market economy Although very underdeveloped, there is a nascent free-market culture in the Soviet Union that makes a modest contribution to support for free-market reforms The free-market culture that is developing in the former Soviet Union resembles that of social democracy, rather than laissez-faire capitalism Democratic values and support for free markets are mutually reinforcing, suggesting that support for democracy makes a very important contribution to support for free-market reform

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0003055400100851

Tolerating Economic Reform: Popular Support for Transition to a Free Market in the Former Soviet Union.

Cet article reexamine les conclusions de Finifter et Mickiewicz (1992) a partir de donnees collectees en Russie, Ukraine et Lituanie entre 1990 et 1992. L'analyse montre une relation importante entre les orientations pour les reformes politiques et economiques. Ceux qui preferent des reformes politiques d'une nature democratique sont egalement partisans d'une reduction de l'intervention de l'Etat dans son role de garant du bien-etre social. De plus, les conclusions, en totale contradiction avec celles de Finifter et al., montrent que les sovietiques ayant recus une education sont plus susceptibles de preferer une responsabilite individuelle en matiere de bien-etre, que ne le sont les personnes moins eduquees

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/2944712.pdf

Reassessing mass support for political and economic change in the former ussr

Politics, work, and daily life in the USSR: Political beliefs of the Soviet citizen: sources of support for regime norms

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Politics, work, and daily life in the USSR: Political beliefs of the Soviet citizen: sources of support for regime norms