ABSTRACT
Despite more than two decades of dealing with renewed independence and implementation of a democratic state, the institutions of democracy in the new democracies remain weak. is weakness is manifested by citizens’ very low trust in government and public authorities, low and continuing to decline levels of participation in elections and civil society, and continuing corruption in both the public and private sectors. Low trust in government and other institutions was discussed in Chapter 4. In this chapter, we examine these several problems in the Baltic states’ democratic institutions inherited from a half century of Soviet rule.
