Communism and Trust

Abstract:     
Trust has been established as a key determinant of national prosperity and democratic and market-based institutions. Thus, it is important that we find the determinants and causal variables behind trust. Using the World Values Survey and working off the conclusions of Christian Bjornskov’s study on the determinants of generalized trust, this paper will further explore the key relationship between post-Communism and trust. This exploration shows that experience with a Soviet-style Communist regime has a significant, long-term negative effect on different measures of trust, that this effect is independent and stronger than the effect of simply having an experience with other types of autocratic regimes, and that this post-Communist effect holds even after controlling for various variables measuring commonalities between countries in Eastern Europe under Russia and the Soviet Union’s sphere of influence.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 34

Keywords: communism, trust, World Values Survey

Accepted Paper Series