Trust and Democracy in Different Post-Communist Societies: Poland, Russia and Georgia Comparison

The subject matter of the paper is a comparison of political trust (that consist the fundament of political stability) and democratic attitudes in three very different post-communist countries: Poland, Georgia and Russia. Poland is exceptionally different from the two others because of a very strong democratic tradition while neither Russia nor Georgia have such a tradition and experience but they differ in terms of their political culture and present political aspirations. Differences of political trust are analyzed in their relations to attitudes towards democracy.
    We are particularly interested in analyzing social differentiation of trust in political system and in particular political institutions in the three countries. We would like to answer the question what are the segments of their societies that might be considered fundaments of social stability and development towards legitimized democratic system. We would like to find out what are the determinants of democratic attitudes, especially their’s relation to political trust in the system as a whole and theirs’ institutions in countries with different traditions and different pace as well as direction of transformation. The main question is, what are the differences between those three countries in terms of the level of political trust and democratic attitudes, what are the differences in relations between the two, and what are the differences in social composition of those who trust the political system and support the democracy and those who do not. That is especially important because of the differences in existing systems. The attempt to answer these questions is made by analyzing the results of survey research conducted on nationwide random representative samples in Poland in September 2010, in Russia in March 2012, in Georgia in August 2013.