The Causes of Trust in the Military: The Case of Slovenia

Measuring of public trust in the military has been an important part of a social research; especially the researchers of defence sector and military organization are prone to make it and analyse the data and also the broader social environment that could influence the data and trust itself. There has been the decades of such research in Slovenia (some publications: Grizold & Jelušič 1992; Grizold 1995; Grizold & Prezelj 2000; Malešič & Jelušič 2006; Garb 2008; Malešič & Vegič 2009; Malešič 2011; Garb 2013; Malešič 2014; Malešič & Vuga Beršnak 2014, Garb 2015; Malešič et al 2016). The data has been followed by domestic and international science, the Slovenian defence ministry and the military, and the public as well. Since 2013 there an attempt was made to deepen the knowledge on trust in the military. Therefore a theoretical study of the causes of the trust into institutions was made as well as some empirical research to reveal the actual/concrete causes/reasons why the people trust the Slovenian Armed Forces (Garb 2014; Garb & Malešič 2016). The survey indicated that the prevailing cause was connected with the perception of the activity of the military. The future research will focus on confirming the thesis, that the activity/performance is the main source of the public trust in the Slovenian military.