Political Violence

The overall focus of this paper is on developing a framework to explain support for alternative politics of a populist type. It has often been argued that the increasing focus on scandals and corruption has done much to alienate voters from traditional politics and that this alienation has, in turn, been reflected in what might be termed a ‘soap‐operatisation’ of politics, with an attendant diminution of trust in political institutions. We contend that, while reducing political events to variants of soap‐operas (with the demystification and banalisation of politics to which this gives rise) has had profound effects on the public perception of the political and political institutions, the result may not be simply a lack of, or diminution of, trust in politicians and political institutions, but rather a parallel growth in cynicism. The paper argues that while cynicism is often assumed to be a component of the decline in trust in institutions the two are, in fact, different and can give rise to different manifestations. We address the difference between the two concepts and develop a hypothesis that contends that supporters of populist alternatives can be located within two attitudinal clusters. We argue that, with respect to populist politicians and populist political parties, a cynical view of politics and political institutions will tend to produce individuals who support what we term ‘political entrepreneurs’, while a real distrust in institutions will translate into support for a more traditional populism of the radical right.

In a preregistered research, we examined the relationships between conspiracy mentality (i.e., the individual susceptibility to endorse conspiracy theories, Bruder et al., 2013) and trust in three actors of the COVID-19 crisis: 1) Political institutions, 2) scientific and medical institutions, and 3) the medical personnel. While the two former groups have played a direct or indirect role in decisions related to public health measures, the latter has not. We expected all these relationships to be negative and mediated by the belief that the pandemic is instrumentalized by authorities to pursue secret agendas. In a study conducted with Belgian (N = 1136) and French (N = 374) convenience samples, conspiracy mentality negatively predicted trust in political institutions, and trust in scientific and medical institutions. These relations were partly mediated by belief that the pandemic is instrumentalized by authorities. In addition, distrust in political, medical and scientific institutions were highly and positively correlated, suggesting that these groups may be viewed as part of a same supra-ordinate category – the “Elites”. By contrast, we found a small negative relationship between conspiracy mentality and trust in the medical personnel in the Belgian sample, but not in the French sample. Trust in the medical personnel was unrelated to the belief that the pandemic is instrumentalized, and only weakly related to distrust in political institutions. This suggests that individuals with a susceptibility to believe in conspiracy theories may not have a propensity to distrust all actors involved in the management of the pandemic, but only those directly or indirectly tied to decisions pertaining to public health measures.

The article examines humanitarian issues that can and should be considered together with the social component, since in most cases humanitarian and social processes accompany each other. The social and humanitarian sphere, like others, is under the influence of various factors and processes. The results of the study highlight such main aspects that the intensive development of the social and humanitarian sphere is taking place, due to the fact that in the modern world, people and human capital are becoming more and more important. The collapse of the bipolar system of interstate relations did not lead to the disappearance of the ideological factor, and the social and humanitarian component in interstate interaction became especially important. In modern world politics, the socio-humanitarian component penetrates more and more intensively into other spheres: military-political and political-economic. It has been established that social and humanitarian aspects accompany almost all conflicts. Moreover, socio-humanitarian aspects are used in a twofold way: on the one hand, phenomena of informational, "hybrid wars" arise to counter the enemy, on the other hand, to reduce tension and resolve conflicts. In the political and economic sphere, a global agreement is emerging, which forms the social responsibility of business on a global scale. In addition, various discussion platforms on political and economic issues, organized by both business structures and power structures, are receiving development. Global challenges, changes in the social and humanitarian sphere can affect global challenges, such as climate change, the fight against crime, the fight against natural disasters, they can require cooperation and coordination between countries. It was found that the increase or decrease of trust in political institutions, the transformation of the social and humanitarian sphere can affect the level of trust in political leaders and institutions in different countries, it can affect the stability and legitimacy of the government. The social and humanitarian sphere is also developing on its own, and at present it is mainly connected with the problems of higher education. In the future, other directions of development of the social and humanitarian sphere of world politics are planned, in particular, health care, international tourism and others, since the state has taken a course to increase its presence in the social and humanitarian field. It is substantiated that the mentioned issues acquired a new color and intensified, which gave a new impetus to the development of the social and humanitarian field. In addition, it was established that the social and humanitarian sphere is intensively involved in the solution of military-political issues. As a result, information and hybrid wars arise as tools for fighting the enemy, what happened for many years is happening today and on the territory of Ukraine from the side of the aggressor in the person of the Russian Federation and its regime. Today, in the modern world, there is a significant growth of the social and humanitarian component of world politics, which is manifested in all spheres of activity. At the same time, the social and humanitarian components are a single complex, and in most cases they accompany and mutually condition each other with various negative factors.

Adolescence is a crucial formative period for developing persistent (dis)trust in political institutions, with long-term implications for democracy. This cross-national mixed-methods study investigates whether adolescents exhibit higher governmental trust than adults and which (un)trustworthiness criteria shaped their views during COVID-19. Quantitative data from multiple European countries (N = 3,714) show that younger adolescents reported significantly higher governmental trust than older adolescents and adults in all examined countries, with the largest difference observed in Serbia. A complementary qualitative meta-synthesis of seven primary studies (N = 251) uncovered 12 broad (un)trustworthiness criteria in COVID-19 decision-making, mostly centred on decision-making procedures. Key concerns included unpredictability, unexplained measures, and a lack of reciprocity and mutual responsibility between citizens and authorities. Younger adolescents sought closeness, emotional support, and predictability, while older adolescents and adults prioritised mutual responsibility, shared values, and clear explanations. These perspectives suggest that younger adolescents' institutional trust may diminish depending on the degree of (un)trustworthy decision-making, especially as their cognitive abilities, autonomy, societal roles, and political awareness evolve. Demonstrating or involving adolescents in trustworthy decision-making is crucial for establishing lasting institutional (dis)trust. The findings of this chapter can inform future crisis management strategies and bolster trust in democratic institutions among emerging generations.

Currently, the scientific literature on political trust continues to be dominated by a rational approach which portrays trust as an evaluation of the effectiveness of institutions and which uses as an empirical basis primarily democratic countries. Such studies are conducted less frequently in non-democratic regimes, which is why political scientists do not have a complete picture of how universal the patterns of political trust formation discovered in democracies actually are. In addition, psychological factors, whose influence on trust may vary depending on the type of regime, remain in the shadow of the rational approach. In this article, the author seeks to fill this research gap and identify similarities and differences in the role of rational and psychological factors in the formation of political institutional trust in democracies and autocracies. To this end, the author analyzes survey data from the 7th wave of the World Value Survey (2017-2022), which surveyed more than 90,000 respondents from around the world. To measure the level of democracy in these countries, the author refers to the V-Dem database and uses the principal component analysis (PCA) to calculate the regime’s democracy index, which allows states to be divided into democratic (18 countries, including Canada, the United States, Germany, Japan, etc.) and authoritarian regimes (22 countries, including Turkey, the Philippines, Iran, Kazakhstan, etc.). The author formulates and tests hypotheses about how the role of factors such as perceived procedural effectiveness, democratic values and psychological needs differs in democracies and autocracies in the institutional trust formation. Empirical analysis revealed that in autocracies, compared to democracies, citizens who rate the democratic nature of elections higher, have more trust in political institutions. At the same time, citizens who believe that corruption is widespread in their country show greater political distrust in democracies than in authoritarian countries. At the same time, in democratic countries, compared to authoritarian ones, citizens who are more prone to the need for an autonomous political climate, trust political institutions more than those whose demand for autonomy is less pronounced. Thus, the results of the study demonstrated the need to take into account the institutional characteristics of different political regimes when analyzing the rational and psychological factors shaping political trust, and outlined the contours for further research in this area.

Research from the United States suggests that the 9/11 terrorist attack increased trust in political institutions by creating a “rally effect.” In this research note we analyze Eurobarometer data collected immediately before and after the March 11, 2004 terrorist attack in Madrid to replicate and extend previous findings from the United States. We report that, first, trust in different types of institutions (political, media, justice) increased significantly immediately after the Madrid terrorist attack; second, the effect of the attack varied systematically across different types of institutions; and, third, the effect was generally short‐lived. Our results suggest that the rally effect of terror on trust in institutions generalizes across national contexts but also that the effect differs across types of institutions.

To determine best practice management strategies in the clinical application of civil commitment. All relevant literature on the topics of 'civil commitment', 'coercion' and 'procedural justice' were located on MEDLINE and PsychLIT databases and reviewed. Literature on the use of Ulysses contracts and advance directives in mental health treatment was integrated into the findings. Best practice evidence that guides management strategies is limited to the time of enactment of civil commitment. Management strategies involve enhancing the principles of procedural justice as a means of limiting negative patient perception of commitment. In the absence of evidence-based research beyond this point of enactment, grounds for the application of the principles of procedural justice are supported by reference to ethical considerations. Ulysses contracts provide an additional method for strengthening procedural justice. Procedural justice principles should be routinely applied throughout the processes of civil commitment in order to enhance longer term therapeutic outcomes and to blunt paternalism.

We examine (1) how trust in foreigners and trust in political institutions affect attitudes toward immigration and (2) the moderating effect of economic development on those impacts, analyzing data from the fifth wave of the World Values Survey. We find that natives who trust foreigners are more tolerant toward immigration and that economic development positively moderates the impact of trust in foreigners on the attitudes. Meanwhile, we find only mixed evidence for the impact of trust in political institutions and the moderating role of economic development in the impact. We conclude by discussing the implications of the findings.

To what extent, if any, does social capital contribute to the democratic formation of citizens´attitudes? It is a major influence among several others or just a minor one when it comes to forming political attitudes? This paper provides an empirical answer to these questions, drawing from the 2010 European Social Survey questionnaire. Its first section includes a discussion about the quality of democarcy in the culturalist approach of Political Science. The following section addresses the operationalization of the concept of quality of democracy and its main dimensions, with particular attention to social accountability. It then seeks to relate the concepts of social accountability as a pivotal dimension of the quality of democracy and social capital as formulated By Robert Putman. We used a multivariate regression analysis to test our hypotheses, which focus on whether the components that make up social capital have a differentiated impact on the formation of political attitudes, i.e. on the degree of satisfaction with democracy and trust in political institutions in old and new democracies.Key-Words: Quality of Democracy, Social Accountability, Social Capital, Satisfaction with Democracy, Trust in Political Institutions.

To test, under randomized field trial conditions, the impact of police using the principles of procedural justice during routine encounters with citizens on attitudes towards drink-driving, perceptions of compliance, and their satisfaction with the police. We conducted the first randomized field trial—the ‘Queensland Community Engagement Trial’ (QCET)—to test the impact of police engaging with citizens by operationalizing the key ingredients of procedural justice (neutrality, citizen participation, respect, and trustworthy motives) in a short, high-volume police–citizen encounter. We randomly allocated 60 roadside Random Breath Testing (RBT) operations to control (business-as-usual) and experimental (procedural justice) conditions. Driver surveys were used to measure the key outcomes: attitudes towards drinking and driving, satisfaction with police and perceptions of compliance. Citizen perceptions of the encounter revealed that the experimental treatment was delivered as planned. We also found significant differences between the experimental and control groups on all key outcome measures: drivers who received the experimental RBT encounter were 1.24 times more likely to report that their views on drinking and driving had changed than the control group; experimental respondents reported small but higher levels of compliance (d = .07) and satisfaction (d = .18) with police during the encounter than did their control group counterparts. Our results show that the way citizens perceive the police can be influenced by the way in which police interact with citizens during routine encounters, and demonstrate the positive benefits of police using the principles of procedural justice. Our study was limited by the use of paper-only surveys and low response rate. We also recognize that the experiment setting (RBT road blocks) is limiting and non-reflective of the wider set of routine police–citizen encounters. Future research should be undertaken, using experimental methods, to replicate our field operationalization of procedural justice in different types of police–citizen encounters.

Political corruption as a negative phenomenon hampers the democratic and economic development of any state. The experience of foreign countries across the world testifies to the existence of number of reasons conducive to the spread of political corruption. Its study is important both for Ukraine, which is actively taking measures to combat political corruption, and for other countries with a high level of political corruption. The article begins with a study of various approaches to understanding the concept of “political corruption”, the reasons for its emergence and determination of the level of citizens’ trust in political institutions in Ukraine and foreign countries. The main obstacles to minimizing the phenomenon of political corruption in Ukraine are the existence of an effective mechanism for financial support of political parties and control over their financial activity. Based on the analysis of scientific literature, international acts, and legislative acts of Ukraine and Lithuania, the authors disclose the experience of Ukraine and Lithuania in the sphere of state financing of political parties and control over their financial activity. The methods of descriptive comparative analysis and observation of the latest scientific research on this issue guide the work. Proceeding from the existing problem of minimizing the phenomenon of corruption in the funding of political parties in Ukraine and taking into account the development of Ukraine’s legal system, the article presents a number of proposals on improving the legislation of Ukraine on financial support of political parties. The authors also provide a proposal on the need to improve the legislation in Lithuania in the area of indirect state funding of political parties. This article aims to disclose the notion of “political corruption”, to study experience of Ukraine and Lithuania in the sphere of minimizations of corruption in the funding of political parties and control over the use of such financial support, to determine the areas for improving the legislation of Ukraine and Lithuania in this issue, and to show the optimal mechanism of overcoming corruption in political parties, since Ukraine is not the only state where this phenomenon reaches its peak.

Are negotiators who rely on justice principles in the process of bargaining and drafting agreements more—or rather less—effective than others? This article examines whether adherence to principles of procedural and distributive justice in negotiations contributes to more effective results, with a focus on international environmental negotiations. Effectiveness is defined in terms of the extent of agreement (among parties and on issues), time to reach agreement, and comprehensiveness of the agreement. A set of hypotheses is evaluated on a selection of bilateral and multilateral cases of environmental negotiations, using statistical methods. The analyses reveal that adherence to principles of procedural justice contributes to more effective results in multilateral environmental negotiations. These principles are found to hinder effectiveness in the bilateral cases. On the other hand, adherence to principles of distributive justice is only moderately related to effectiveness in both the bilateral and multilateral cases.

In this article, the author studies the concept of political stability and analyzes the factors of youth that affect stability. To date, the world’s population is increasing, and young people occupy the main cohort. In this regard, they are both a positive resource and a negative one. According to research, the propensity of young people to terrorist and protest activity is because the state is not able to meet the needs of young people. In particular, youth policy is understood as a system of state measures aimed at supporting and developing youth. An analysis of stability studies showed that one of the factors contributing to a decrease in stability is youth. Factors contributing to youth mobilization include youth bulge (increase in the number of young people in relation to the total population), growth in education with high unemployment, high unemployment and low levels of resources in relation to the number of young people, poverty, urbanization (youth migration to cities, an increase in the number of young people), social conditions (low motivation/family/career), low trust in political institutions, high levels of corruption, etc.

Trust in political institutions and in other people is hypothesized by cultural theories to be essential for making democracieswork. Trust is equated with diffuse support and linked to the stability and effective functioning of democratic regimes. Institutional theories, in contrast, question the importance of trust for democratic support and emphasize institutional performance instead. A structural equation model using New Russia Barometer survey data tests cultural and institutional theories of regime support. The results confirm cultural arguments that institutional trust encourages political involvement and contributes to public support for democratic ideals, whereas they contradict the hypothesis that trust is critical for political support. Much stronger support exists for institutional theory’s claims about the importance of economic and political performance. Cultural influences, however, appear somewhat larger than institutional theories allow and may become larger still during the longer term, suggesting the need to integrate cultural and institutional theories.

Today’s democratic systems face several challenges – populism, polarisation and de-democratisation – threatening their functioning and vitality. These dangers underline the need to reflect on the importance of education, mainly in formal educational contexts, in mitigating the spread of antidemocratic, populist and exclusionary positions. Data from a surveyed sample of 1047 young adults (aged 18-30) show that educational attainment and experiences of a democratic educational climate play a fundamental role in developing more democratic, inclusive and pluralistic attitudes. Concretely, those two educational variables hold a significant ideological role: lower levels of educational attainment are associated with more right-wing ideological positions and extreme right-wing young adults report less democratic university experiences. Additionally, the results show that more democratic university experiences mediate the relationship between democratic support and greater trust in political institutions. Likewise, such experiences mitigate the role of populist attitudes in institutional distrust. Therefore, it is essential to discuss the democratic and political role of schools and universities from a contextual and processual perspective.