<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...

Year	Armenia	Year	Armenia
1996	-0.473051	2007	-0.742384
1997	-	2008	-0.708098
1998	-0.861185	2009	-0.619758
1999	-	2010	-0.696304
2000	-0.759535	2011	-0.656885
2001	-	2012	-0.587787
2002	-0.746524	2013	-0.531947
2003	-0.570029	2014	-0.523999
2004	-0.610483	2015	-0.533811
2005	-0.674141	2016	-0.571971
2006	-0.670823	2017	-0.5601
		2018	-0.3491

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.

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Worldwide Governance Indicators Control of Corruption in Armenia