Lithuanians distrusful of their state

According to several surveys the Lithuanians' trust in state institutions has declined considerably. The poor state of the country's society underscores this, writes political expert Vytautas Dumbliauskas on the online portal of Lithuania's public radio broadcaster LRT: "Only between four and five percent of the respondents trust the Lithuanian parliament - in European countries with a long democratic tradition that figure is between 40 and 60 percent. Even fever people trust the political parties, which are not state institutions but assume a mediating role between the citizens and the state. In comparison to older democracies we Lithuanians place much less trust in our legal system, our police force or our education system. ... People's trust in each other is also very low, according to sociological studies. ... An important feature of societies where people have little trust in institutions or each other is a weak civil society. And this in turn fosters the uncontrolled expansion of state bureaucracy. The state becomes a anonymous machine against which the populace feels powerless and disillusioned."

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