Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.20901/pm.62.4.01
Improving the Limited Understanding of Social and Institutional Trust in Croatia
Kosta Bovan
orcid.org/0000-0002-5183-6065
; University of Zagreb, Faculty of Political Science
Abstract
Generalized social trust and institutional trust are essential for a well-functioning society. The former refers to the belief that people, in general, can be trusted, while the latter pertains to confidence in institutions to act in ways that enhance overall well-being. Understanding the predictors of trust is particularly relevant in Croatia, where both social and institutional trust have remained comparatively low over the past 25 years. Previous research has primarily examined various socio-economic and socio-demographic factors. However, these provide only a limited understanding of individual-level variations in trust. Therefore, this study aims to improve our understanding of trust in Croatia by incorporating novel socio-political and socio-psychological concepts, such as social dominance orientation, populism, perception and justification of norm breaking, and religiosity. Results show that the models of predictors of trust are improved by the widening of the pool of predictors, but there is still a hefty amount of unexplained variance.
Keywords
Social Trust; Institutional Trust; Individual-level Predictors; Populism; Norm Perception
Hrčak ID:
344937
URI
Publication date:
27.2.2026.
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