New PONARS Eurasia Policy Memo: Perceptions of State Capacity

Building on our previous work in the CESCI project, Ralph Clem and I published a PONARS Eurasia Policy Memo that reviews how public attitudes about institutions have changed during the COVID-19 pandemic. We note that attitudes in our three cases (Estonia, Georgia, and Ukraine) differ in ways that other studies have previously identified: Overall trust/satisfaction is highest in Estonia and lowest in Ukraine, with Georgia in the middle. However, trust/satisfaction with healthcare seems to be affected by pandemic responses, at least in the short term. Estonian respondents were notably less favorable in their attitudes about healthcare in the early stages of the pandemic; the reverse was true in Georgia. The responses track closely with pandemic mitigation performance in those countries. The preliminary findings point to vulnerabilities that malicious actors could exploit to undermine legitimacy.