Varying Levels of Trust across Multi-Level Governance: A Sustainability Perspective

Social sustainability, the third pillar of sustainability alongside ecological and economic dimensions, focuses on maintaining the well-being and viability of communities, as a healthy functioning society is a prerequisite for sustainable operation. Trust, a common measure of social sustainability, is a fundamental pillar of a sustainable, resilient, inclusive, transparent and accountable society. This research aims to analyse how trust as a measure of social sustainability interacts with different levels of governance and institutional performance in the Visegrád Four countries. The study found that although there is a significant correlation between various factors of institutional trust at the national level, there is no meaningful relationship between general and institutional trust across the examined countries (Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, and Poland). The analysis found that institutional trust is influenced more by endogenous factors, such as perceived governance effectiveness and citizen satisfaction, than by general trust. However, no strong correlation could be shown between Word Governance Indicator and institutional trust. The findings show that trust does not progressively decline towards higher levels of institutions; instead, proximity and citizen engagement boost trust at the local level, while different mechanisms likely drive trust at higher government levels. Additionally, the research highlights that in post-communist societies, strong traditions of particular trust limit general trust in institutions, emphasizing the complexity of trust dynamics within different governance levels.