<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

<p>Eastern European post-communist countries inherited pervasive corruption after the breakup of the USSR. Public trust was the crucial factor in tackling corruption and democracy building in these countries. This article takes Armenia as a case to study the antecedents and evolution of trust in Eastern European post-communist countries that went through a government coup in the 21st century. By comparing the corruption situation in Armenia before and after the Velvet Revolution 2018, we scrutinise how trust was and is critical to combating corruption and democracy building. We argue that in transition governments, one can distinguish two sources of creating public trust. The first wave generates when the government is newly established, and people trust the leader and his persona. Arguably, in this stage, the level of trust generated is based on expectations. The second wave of trust comes with the government’s actual performance, measured partly based on corruption perception.</p>
</abstract>

Eastern European post-communist countries inherited pervasive corruption after the breakup of the USSR. Public trust was the crucial factor in tackling corruption and democracy building in these countries. This article takes Armenia as a case to study the antecedents and evolution of trust in Eastern European post-communist countries that went through a government coup in the 21st century. By comparing the corruption situation in Armenia before and after the Velvet Revolution 2018, we scrutinise how trust was and is critical to combating corruption and democracy building. We argue that in transition governments, one can distinguish two sources of creating public trust. The first wave generates when the government is newly established, and people trust the leader and his persona. Arguably, in this stage, the level of trust generated is based on expectations. The second wave of trust comes with the government’s actual performance, measured partly based on corruption perception.

Democracy building and the link between public trust and corruption perception: Comparative analysis before and after the Armenian Velvet Revolution in 2018

Central European Journal of Public Policy

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Eastern European post-communist countries inherited pervasive corruption after the breakup of the USSR. Public trust was the crucial factor in tackling...

Democracy building and the link between public trust and corruption perception: Comparative analysis before and after the Armenian Velvet Revolution in 2018

Published Online: Jun 01, 2023

Page range: 27 - 40

Received: Jul 20, 2022

Accepted: Jan 30, 2023

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/cejpp-2023-0003

© 2023 Aram Simonyan et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.