Empowering The State : Support for State Intervention in The Baltic States and Poland
Sammanfattning: The central question for this study is the popular perception of the state in four Eastern European countries. The democratic transition in this part of Europe has often been marked by deep mistrust towards politicians and sometimes towards the new political system as such. Among other things, the low election turnout in these countries has sometimes been quoted as a symptom of the aforementioned problems. Does lack of explicit trust towards politicians and the political system mean that the ability of the state to act as a regulator and a welfare producer is affected adversely? Is the capacity of the state to fulfill its roll as an intervening actor directly connected to this expressed trust? This study is concerned with these questions and by posing them it reaches beyond the common studies on democratization, whose main concern is the status of ’democracy’ as such. Data from the three Baltic States and Poland reveals that possible connections between citizens’ expressed trust towards the political branches of the state and their opinion on the legitimate role of the state as a regulator is probably more complex than one could expect. The given role of the state as an intervening actor in two policy areas – environmental protection and alcohol consumption – appears very much unaffected by the popular trust towards the political sphere of the state, or its lack. This constitutes a significant finding which opens new avenues into studying state legitimacy in Eastern Europe and elsewhere.
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