Stability and/or Change? Institutional Trust in Croatia in 1999–2020

Abstract

This paper analyses the state of institutional trust (IT) in Croatia based on data  on a representative sample of Croatian citizens in eight time points over the past 20 years. Based on Easton's and Norris' concepts and considering previous studies on IT in Croatia, this paper brings some new elements. While most of the previous studies cover a maximum of three measurement points in a relatively short time span and analyse the latent structure of IT through an exploratory approach, this paper is based on an analysis spanning eight time points and analyses the appropriateness of existing theoretical models. In addition, the analysis of fluctuations in the levels of IT is based on determining measurement invariance as the most important methodological contribution of this paper. The main results of the study show that the level of citizens' trust in individual institutions is usually below the midpoint of the scale of 1 to 5, except for the military and police. Second, Croatian citizens distinguish between two types of IT – trust in representative and security institutions. Third, in the 1999–2020 period, IT in representative institutions decreased, while trust in security institutions remained pronouncedly stable. These insights lead to two main conclusions. First, the measurement invariance should become the standard for future IT studies comparing different time points. Second, the low level of trust regarding representative institutions of the Republic of Croatia suggests the alienation of citizens from these institutions and indicates a problem for the functioning of representative democracy.