Forcing to Trust: How Authoritarian Regimes Deal with the Culture of Political Distrust

This paper is devoted to the study of factors affecting political trust in hybrid regimes. The paper examines the concept of political trust and tests the mechanisms of its formation in Russia. With the help of regression analysis, the hypothesis about the influence of economic growth and development on the political trust is tested. Based on the case study of an environmental conflict in the Chelyabinsk region, the possibility of establishing political trust through consultative legitimation is considered. Regression analysis and analysis of secondary sources showed that the influence of economic growth and development on political trust is rather limited, whereas patriotic mobilization is the main cause of periods of high institutional trust. With the help of the case study method, it was possible to establish that procedural and consultative legitimation influence, but do not determine the credibility of political decisions at the regional level.