Sociologický časopis / Czech Sociological Review 2010, 46(5): 683-718 | DOI: 10.13060/00380288.2010.46.5.01

Sources of Trust in Institutions in the Czech Republic

Daniel Čermák, Jana Stachová
Sociologický ústav AV ČR, v.v.i., Praha

This article sets out to identify the factors that can help explain trust in selected political institutions in the Czech Republic - the Government, the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate of the Parliament of the Czech Republic, regional assemblies, and municipal assemblies - and determine what kind of influence certain factors have on the overall level of trust in the population. The life-time learning model devised by the American sociologists Mishler and Rose, who combine cultural and institutional approaches to explain trust in institutions, was used as the theoretical framework for this investigation. Logistic regression models were created for each of the observed institutions. The data used to build the models were drawn from a series of surveys conducted under the 'Czech Society' project by the Public Opinion Research Centre at the Institute of Sociology of the Academy of Sciences. The results of the logistic regression analyses showed that the particular level of trust in an institutions is infl uenced more by institutional performance (and this influence most pronounced in the case of the Government and the Chamber of Deputies) than by the effect of socialisation within the predominant political culture, which was not very strong. Nevertheless, the effect of culturally dependent variables such as gender and religious confession is not negligible.

Keywords: : trust in institutions, political institutions, logistic regression, lifetime learning model, Czech Republic.

Published: October 1, 2010Show citation

ACS AIP APA ASA Harvard Chicago IEEE ISO690 MLA NLM Turabian Vancouver
Čermák, D., & Stachová, J. (2010). Sources of Trust in Institutions in the Czech Republic. Sociologický časopis / Czech Sociological Review, 46(5), 683-718. doi: 10.13060/00380288.2010.46.5.01.
Download citation
  • BibTeX (.bib)
  • Bookends (.ris)
  • EasyBib (.ris)
  • EndNote (.enw)
  • EndNote 8 (.xml)
  • ISI WoS (.isi)
  • Medlars (.medlars)
  • Mendeley (.ris)
  • MODS (.xml)
  • Papers (.ris)
  • RefWorks (.txt)
  • RefManager (.ris)
  • RIS (.ris)
  • MS Word (.xml)
  • Zotero (.ris)
    • Open full article

    References

    1. Almond, Gabriel A., Sidney Verba. 1963. The Civic Culture. Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Go to original source...
    2. Anderson, Christopher J., Andrew J. LoTempio. 2002. "Winning, Losing and Political Trust in America." British Journal of Political Science 32 (2): 335-351. Go to original source...
    3. Bartkowski, Jerzy. 2003. "Social Capital in Poland." Pp. 184-199 in Garbiel Badescu, Eric M. Uslaner (eds.). Social Capital and the Transition to Democracy. London, New York: Routledge. Go to original source...
    4. Berger, Mark, John Brehm. 1997. "Watergate and the Erosion of Social Capital." Příspěvek přednesen na Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association. Chicago, 24. 4. 1997.
    5. Campbell, William Ross. 2004. "The Sources of Institutional Trust in East and West Germany: Civic Culture or Economic Performance?" German Politics 13 (3): 401-418. Go to original source...
    6. Červenka, Jan. 2006a. "Současný stranický systém z perspektivy konfliktních linií." Pp. 115-138 in Daniel Kunštát (ed.). České veřejné mínění: výzkum a teoretické souvislosti. Praha: Sociologický ústav AV ČR.
    7. Červenka, Jan. 2006b. "Veřejné mínění o Senátu." [online]. Tisková zpráva CVVM Pi61211. Praha: Sociologický ústav AV ČR [cit. 31. 10. 2008]. Dostupné z: <http://www.cvvm.cas.cz/upl/zpravy/100628s_pi61211.pdf>.
    8. Červenka, Jan, Jana Stachová. 2004. "Jaký by měl být člen krajského zastupitelstva? Vztah k vlastnímu kraji." [online]. Tisková zpráva CVVM. Praha: Sociologický ústav AV ČR [cit. 31. 10. 2008]. Dostupné z: <http://www.cvvm.cas.cz/upl/zpravy/100411s_pi41115b.pdf>.
    9. Dowley, Kathleen M., Brian D. Silver. 2003. "Social Capital, Ethnicity and Support for Democracy in the Post-Communist States." Pp. 95-119 in Gabriel Badescu, Eric M. Uslaner (eds.). Social Capital and the Transition to Democracy. London, New York: Routledge. Go to original source...
    10. Grootaert, Christiaan. 2001. "Social Capital The Missing Link?" Pp. 9-29 in Paul Dekker, Eric M. Uslaner (eds.). Social Capital and Participation in Everyday Life. London, New York: Routledge. Go to original source...
    11. Grosskopf, Anke. 2008. "Explaining the Democratic Trust Conundrum: the Sources of Institutional Trust in the Reunited Germany." International Social Science Review 83 (1/2): 3-26. Go to original source...
    12. Horáková, Naděžda. 2005. "Důvěra k ústavním institucím a spokojenost s politickou situací." [online]. Tisková zpráva CVVM pi50506. Praha: Sociologický ústav AV ČR [cit. 13. 11. 2009]. Dostupné z: <http://www.cvvm.cas.cz/upl/zpravy/100482s_pi50506.pdf>.
    13. Horáková, Naděžda, Jana Stachová. 2004. "Krajské samosprávy očima veřejnosti." [online]. Tisková zpráva CVVM pi41115a. Praha: Sociologický ústav AV ČR [cit. 13. 11. 2009]. Dostupné z: <http://www.cvvm.cas.cz/upl/zpravy/100412s_pi41115a.pdf>.
    14. Hudson, John. 2006. "Institutional Trust and Subjective Well-Being across the EU." KYKLOS International Review for Social Science 59 (1): 43-62. Go to original source...
    15. Kunštát, Daniel. 2002. "Důvěra k ústavním institucím." [online]. Tisková zpráva CVVM pi21220. Praha: Sociologický ústav AV ČR [cit. 31. 10. 2008]. Dostupné z: <http://www.cvvm.cas.cz/upl/zpravy/100149s_pi21220.doc>.
    16. Levi, Margaret. 1996. "Social and Unsocial Capital: A Review Essay of Robert Putnam's Making Democracy Work" Politics & Society 24 (1): 45-55. Go to original source...
    17. Lühiste, Kadri. 2006. "Explaining Trust in Political Institutions: Some Illustrations from the Baltic States." Communist and Post-Communist Studies 39 (4): 475-496. Go to original source...
    18. Meer, Job van der. 2003. "Rain or Fog? An Empirical Examination of Social Capital's Rainmaker Effects." Pp. 133-152 in Dietlind Stolle, Marc Hooghe (eds.). Generating Social Capital: Civil Society and Institutions in Comparative Perspective. New York, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillian. Go to original source...
    19. Mishler, William, Richard Rose. 2001. "What Are the Origins of Political Trust? Testing Institutional and Cultural Theories in Post-communist Societies." Comparative Political Studies 34 (1): 30-62. Go to original source...
    20. Moore, Stanley W., James Lare, Kenneth A. Wagner. 1985. The Child's Political World. New York: Praeger.
    21. Newton, Kenneth, Pippa Norris. 2000. "Confidence in Public Institutions: Faith, Culture, or Performance?" Pp. 52-73 in Susan J. Pharr, Robert D. Putnam (eds.). Disaffected Democracies: What's Troubling the Trilateral Countries? Princeton: Princeton University Press. Go to original source...
    22. Norris, P. 1999. "Institutional Explanations for Political Support." Pp. 217-235 in P. Norris (ed.). Critical Citizens: Global Support for Democratic Governance. New York: Oxford University Press. Go to original source...
    23. Putnam, Robert D. et al. 1993. Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy. Princeton, NJ, Chichester: Princeton University Press. Go to original source...
    24. Rakušanová, Petra, Blanka Řeháková. 2006. "Participace, demokracie a občanství v evropském kontextu." Sociologické studie / Sociological Studies 06:3. Praha: Sociologický ústav AV ČR, v.v.i.
    25. Ryšavý, Dan. 2001. "Obraz porevoluční/postkomunistické 'krize důvěry' v mezinárodních surveys a výzkumu veřejného mínění." Pp. 49-71 in Acta Universitatis Palackianae Olomucensis. Facultas Philoshophica. Socilogica 2001. Olomouc: Filozofická fakulta Univerzity Palackého.
    26. Schoenfeld, Eugen. 1978. "Image of Man: The Effect of Religion on Trust." Review of Religious Research 20 (1): 61-67. Go to original source...
    27. Sedláčková, Markéta. 2004. "Důvěra v demokratické společnosti." Pp. 135-150 in Jiří Kabele (ed.) et al. Rozvoj české společnosti v Evropské unii I. Sociologie; prognostika a správa. Praha: MATFYZPRESS.
    28. Sedláčková, Markéta, Jiří Šafr. 2008. "Social Trust and Civic Participation in the Czech Republic." Pp. 213-236 in Joseph D. Lewandowski, Milan Znoj (eds.). Trust and Transitions. Social Capital in a Changing World. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
    29. Stachová, Jana. 2005. "Důvěra a občanská angažovanost regionálních elit." Pp. 69-88 in Tomáš Kostelecký, Jana Vobecká (eds.). 2005. Regionální elity 2004. Sociologické studie / Sociological Studies 05:03. Praha: Sociologický ústav AV ČR.
    30. Stolle, Dietlind, Bo Rothstein. 2003. "Social Capital, Impartiality and the Welfare State: An Institutional Approach." Pp. 191-210 Dietlind Stolle, Marc Hooghe. Generating Social Capital: Civil Society and Institutions in Comparative Perspective. New York, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillian. Go to original source...
    31. Uslaner, Eric M. 2003. "Trust, Democracy and Governance: Can Government Policies Influence Generalized Trust?" Pp. 171-190 in Dietlind Stolle, Marc Hooghe (eds.). Generating Social Capital: Civil Society and Institutions in Comparative Perspective. New York, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillian. Go to original source...
    32. Uslaner, Eric M., Gabriel Badescu. 2003. "Legacies and Conflicts. The Challenges to Social Capital in the Democratic Transition." Pp. 219-232 in Gabriel Badescu, Eric M. Uslaner (eds.). Social Capital and the Transition to Democracy. London, New York: Routledge. Go to original source...

    This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0), which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original publication is properly cited. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.


    Return to the content