Unconditional support?

Abstract

European Union (EU) membership constituted an important element for the stabilization and modernization of democratic institutions in post‑1989 Central‑Eastern Europe (CEE). While public opinion support for European integration has not been uniform in the region, trust in European institutions has been consistently higher than confidence in domestic institutions in the region. EU structures and policies have been often perceived as necessary and efficient, especially where domestic institutions were failing. However, the financial andeconomic crisis of the first decade of the 21st century has seriously undermined such perceptions of output legitimacy of EU institutions and, consequently, support for the European integration project and trust in supranational institutions has been eroding in the whole of the EU. In this context, the goal of the article is to explore the possible link between CEE citizens’ evaluations of the financial, economic, and political crisis within the EU and their institutional trust in a multilevel political system.

Keywords

• institutional trust
• economic crisis
• Central Eastern Europe
• European Union