Factori asociaţi cinismului faţă de autoritate în România şi Regatul Unit
Factors associated with cynicism towards authority in Romania and the United Kingdom

Summary/Abstract: Legal cynicism is the assessment of the law (and its agents) as being illegitimate and poorly prepared to protect the citizens. This concept has been tested in numerous studies abroad but has rarely been addressed in Eastern European and especially Romanian research. Thus, the present study is proposed as being a part of a more extensive attempt to address legal cynicism in countries outside Western Europe and the United States of America. The first aim of the research is to compare the level of legal cynicism in two different cultural contexts, namely in Romania and the United Kingdom. The second objective is to investigate the variables associated with legal cynicism in the two countries. 252 people (144 from Romania and 108 from the United Kingdom) took part in this research. The results show that there are no differences between the two countries in terms of legal cynicism. However, in Romania, the factors associated with legal cynicism are self control and procedural justice, while in the United Kingdom the significant associations were with self control, respectively individual deviance. In conclusion, although legal cynicism reaches similar levels in the two countries, some specific factors lead to different associations with other variables. Cultural, social and psychological factors that may explain legal cynicism are addressed at the end of the article.

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