Breaking the Aid Paradox: How Trust Mechanisms Shape Civil Society Effectiveness in Belarus
A study planned for 2027 tests whether the signals donors treat as proof of credibility actually cost foreign-funded nonprofits public trust under authoritarian pressure.
Planned for 2027. Building on the Aid Paradox discovered in 2024 — where donor funding priorities and public support are systemically misaligned — this research aims to investigate which organisational trust signals actually build versus erode public legitimacy for civil society in an authoritarian context.
Core research question
How do different organisational trust signals impact public trust in foreign-funded nonprofits in Belarus, and what mechanisms can rebuild trust in civic space under authoritarian pressure?
- Which organisational features — professionalization vs. grassroots embeddedness — actually build versus erode public trust?
- How does trust formation differ across demographic groups in authoritarian contexts?
- What trust-building strategies can foreign donors adopt to strengthen rather than undermine civil society legitimacy?
Methodology
Mixed-methods approach combining quantitative survey data with sectoral trust analysis.
Phase 1 deploys an 800-respondent CAWI survey across Belarusian cities, testing 30 organisational features — spanning governance, transparency, legitimacy signals, funding sources, and community presence — against a single repeated question: how important is each feature for a nonprofit to be considered trustworthy?
Phase 2 maps those trust signals across 25 thematic sectors from the prior research by evaluating trust factors per sector based on existing information about the largest and most representative organisations in each sector — developing composite trust scores, identifying structural trust deficits, and examining which sectors have trust-building potential and which face inherent legitimacy barriers.
The study tests a central hypothesis: that donor-driven professionalisation — certifications, formal reporting structures, international affiliations — actively reduces public trust compared to community-embedded signals such as local leadership, visible presence, and relational accountability.
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