ISSN 1847-2397 godište II broj 1 2009. | volume II number 1 2009

Plamena Pehlivanova: The Decline of Trust in Post-communist Societiessuvremene TEME, (2009.) God. 2, Br. 1CONTEMPORARY issues, (2009) Vol. 2, No. 1Table 1Confidence in InstitutionsPresident 71%Army 55%Police 51%Local Government 40%Banking System 37%Cabinet 30%ProsecutionCourts of LawParliament18%18%15%* Survey conducted by Gallup, July20053. History and Old AgeThe political and social behavior of theBalkans can be explained by the inherited cultureof traditional antagonism that relates not only totheir communist past. Nikolay Valkov describesthis behavior as formed around culture, historyand the political model of the country. (Valkov,2009) Furthermore, his study closely comparesthe resemblance between Latin European countriesto post-communist countries in their democraticpolitical model and low voluntary organisationalmembership. It could be argued thatthe interpersonal relations on the micro-levelinfluence the social and political structure of thestate. Nevertheless, through his analysis, Valkovopposes this theory and concludes that the lowassociational life model in post-communist societiesis not necessary correlated with their democraticperformance. Instead, he believes that thelow membership rates should be understood assomething which has its own internal logic andexplanation. “The origins lie in the nature of thesocietal transformation in the region.” (Valkov,2009: 14). Bulgarians in this way are less boundto the values of individual worthiness. Their socialsolidarity is a hybrid of the old structured collectivismthat emerged as structures during thetransition, believes Plamen Georgiev.Eastern and Central Europe have goodreason to distrust the government, since theyhave lived in authoritarian regimes, some moretotalitarian than others, forced to subjugate individualinterest to those of the Communist Party.Social participation in “volunteer” and politicalorganisations was advocated (if not enforced),which led to drastic decline in any kind of politicalor civic organisations after the fall of communism.With the fall of the regime, the reactionwas a massive alienation and distrust towardthe communist regime and “lingering cynicismtoward political and civil institutions” (Georgiev,2007:138). One may speculate that with thefall of the regime, there would have been ancentar za politološka istraživanjathe political science research centrewww.cpi.hr34