Suchergebnisse

"The fall of the Soviet Union sparked hopes that a Russian middle class would emerge and thrive, but so far it has not." Second in a series on social mobility around the world.

Programs that encourage democracy in foreign countries have become controversial, in part because of problems in how they have been implemented. Sociological research has the potential to make them more effective.

The emerge of a vibrant middle class has been blocked by pervasive cronysm and a lack of meritbased opportunity.

Major setbacks in the protection of human rights during the Putin regime have produced little public outcry, suggesting that there is scant support for human rights in Russian public opinion. However, analysis of survey data spanning 2001–2015 yields several surprising conclusions. In contrast to findings from earlier studies, the data indicate that Russians think of rights in two distinct dimensions: material rights (including economic rights and rights of personal integrity) and (conventionally understood) civil liberties. Support for the former has been strong throughout the Putin era, and support for the latter has grown steadily and consistently. Moreover, support for civil liberties has increased most among less-educated and younger Russians who do not reside in Moscow and St. Petersburg: Contrary to theoretical expectations, variation in support has become less systematically linked to standard socioeconomic and demographic variables. Russians are divided over whether political NGOs should be allowed to receive foreign funding, a major issue for human rights advocates given the Russian government's crackdown on such funding and on human rights NGOs.

Surveys conducted during the Russia's tumultuous election season of 2011-2012 yield insight into Russians' complex views of their government's foreign policies and the United States. Foreign policy is an area where the Russian government receives unusually high marks from the population, but voters tend not to choose candidates on the basis of their foreign policy views. Suspicions toward the United States are widespread but neither universal nor uniform: There is support for cooperation with the US on some issues. Antipathy toward America is not a key source of support for Putin, but it does correlate with support for Russia's Syria policy. These results may reflect deeper tendencies in Russian public opinion than do polls conducted during the massive anti-American propaganda campaign underway since the start of the Ukraine crisis. If so, it is doubtful that public anti-American sentiment either drives or constrains Russia's foreign policies. Adapted from the source document.

Soviet legacies and uneven economic distress make post-Soviet Russia an especially interesting case in which to assess the effects of economic performance on regional net migration rates. Random effects models of net regional migration in 77 Russian regions from 1993 to 2002 indicate that mean wages and unemployment levels have substantial and predictable effects. These effects have several dynamic aspects: changes in mean wages (but not changes in unemployment) exert effects independently of wage and unemployment levels, the effect of unemployment decreases over time, and the effect of wage levels appears to increase. Overall, the results suggest a tendency toward regional equilibrium with respect to employment following the initial shock of Soviet collapse and market reforms, but continuing disequilibrium with respect to wages.