(Dis)trust into political institutions and conspiracy theories : case of Slovenia

english

2024

volume 17, issue 2

conspiracy theories   information   institutions   political trust

Univerza v Ljubljani, Fakulteta za družbene vede
(Obvezni izvod spletne publikacije)
Alma Mater Europaea - Evropski center, Maribor
(Obvezni izvod spletne publikacije)

After the collapse of the non-democratic regimes in the late 1980s and early 1990s, new democratic states emerged in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and began their state building on the wave of democratic enthusiasm. Majority of those countries, including Slovenia, entered European Union in early 2000s as consolidated well-working democracies, although public trust in democratic political institutions has been on the slow decline since gaining independence, only to drop substantially more after global economic crisis and wave of populist politics hit CEE in the last decade. Author is analyzing trends in (dis)trust levels in key political institutions in Slovenia with emphasis on the wave of conspiracy theories, which extensively spread during and after global coronavirus pandemic. Crisis events such as recent global pandemic have triggered a wave of concerns about the actual backgrounds of global crises, and those concerns eroded public trust into key political and administrative institutions and added fuel to the conspiracy theories that were often embraced by political parties and non-governmental stakeholders that exploited sometimes-legitimate concerns to their own benefits.

26.08.2024