The reticence of the public to undergo vaccination is directly linked with mistrust in governments while in Serbia exists the profiling of a trend termed ’authoritarian production of trust, it was concluded during the presentation of the new Policy Brief „Outta Trust? (Post)-Pandemic Trust and Democratic Resilience in the Western Balkans“, published by The Balkans in Europe Advisory Group (BiEPAG) at CEU Democracy Institute, write europeanwesternbalkans.com
Based on a large-scale public opinion poll carried out in the six countries of the Western Balkans, this brief shows that the pandemic has exacerbated the region’s issues with trust in public institutions even further. The study finds that the reticence of the public to undergo vaccination is directly linked with mistrust in governments, corroborating earlier research by BiEPAG that warned about the wide diffusion of coronavirus-related conspiracy theories in the region and their relation with vaccine scepticism. During the presentation of the Policy brief, it was said that the crisis of democracy and trust also exists in the European Union, especially in some member states such as Hungary, and that it is closely related to the leaders in the Western Balkans.