Zsolt Boda and Gergő Medve-Bálin have recently published an article entitled "Politicized Institutional Trust in East Central Europe" in  Taiwan Journal of Democracy.

Abstract

Thirty years after their democratic transition, several countries of East Central Europe (ECE) are exhibiting signs of democratic instability: the rise of populist politicians in power, accompanied by democratic backsliding and illiberal tendencies. The essay investigates the state-of-the-art of democracy in the region from the perspective of political trust. Political trust is an essential element as well as an indicator of the legitimacy of the political system. Low trust may lead to political cynicism, a decline of political participation, or, conversely, to the rise of anti-establishment populism. Empirical research shows that political trust is lower in ECE than in older Western European democracies. Equally important is that its volatility is higher and its distribution among the population is more polarized. In this essay, we seek to shed light on some potential reasons for this volatility by arguing that institutional trust in ECE is heavily exposed to politicization. We demonstrate this by relying on data from the European Social Survey. Our models reveal that, all else being equal, voting for the incumbent governing parties has a stronger positive association with institutional trust in Eastern than in Western Europe. We interpret our results according to Easton’s concept of diffuse and specific support. While the generally low level of institutional trust in ECE is a sign of the low diffuse public support for the political system, politicization, which appears as a dominant aspect of specific support, is responsible for the fluctuations in trust in the East.