Comparative Sociology in Quantitative Perspective

The LCSR conference "Comparative Sociology in Quantitative Perspective" took place in Moscow from 25^th to 28^th of November. It was an important event in the life of the laboratory, because the first results of the researchers work were summed up. One year ago, in the end of November 2010, the rector of HSE Yaroslav Kuzminov signed the decree about establishment of the new laboratory with the use of money of the Russian Government’s Mega-Grant. A network of young specialists was set within this year. These scholars gather several times a year to demonstrate the results of their work, share ideas and receive recommendations regarding further development of their projects. Staff researchers work in Moscow and Saint-Petersburg, associated researchers are spread across whole Russia, Belorussia, Ukraine and Germany.

The November report conference was distinguished by substantially increased quality of reports presented by the participants. The discussion of projects used to be held as a part of regular work, but this time many researchers showed their projects at its best. The director of the laboratory, Eduard Ponarin noted that the most of the papers presented are ready to be published. He advised colleagues to start working on the preprint series in English, which can be published in a special series at HSE. According to the opinion of Daniel Alexandrov, senior research fellow at LCSR and professor at HSE, this conference was the best and the most productive of all the English-speaking conferences which he has ever attended in Russia.

There were three new projects presented at the report conference. Kristina Puzarina from University of Mannheim, Germany reported on her research project about human rights’ perception. Alexey Bessudnov who recently returned to work at HSE from the University of Florence shared his hypotheses about the differences in bribery levels across different regions of Russia. Ekaterina Kuldina (HSE) presented a model explaining the happiness dynamics in Russia with application of cohort data analysis.

Invited lectors also made reports at the conference. Kazuhiro Kumo from Hitotsubashi University, Japan presented his research on migration from Tajikistan to Russia. His results show that men who leave to work in Russia are not the poorest, they own substantial sums of money that allow them to buy tickets. Moreover, the sizes of remittances sent to homeland don’t depend on real income levels of families who stayed there.

Igor Zadorin, the director of “Euroasian Monitor”, told about the most recent data of political loyalty’s monitoring. He studies the value changes in all post-Soviet countries (except for Turkmenistan). According to presented data, the level of trust to president is much higher than trust to parliament in all post-Soviet countries. Apart from that, life satisfaction is not connected with political freedoms in the ex-USSR countries.

Anna Andreenkova, representative of European Social Survey (ESS) in Russia, told that the data of the 5^th ESS wave held in 2010 have already been published and presented the results of primary analysis. According to them, the European population doesn’t demonstrate any significant changes in values and attitudes in comparison with four previous waves. At the same time respondents from Russia show higher level of life satisfaction and interpersonal trust than in previous waves.

Olga Kamenchuk, PR director of VCIOM, reported on “brain drain” from Russia. The conclusions presented by Olga were made on the basis of not only Russian statistics (it doesn’t reflect the real migration processes pretty often), but also on the basis of interviews with immigrants abroad. More than 60 interviews were taken within this research project.

All in all, it should be emphasized that about 40 projects are being supported at the moment. Most of them use international databases and imply cross-country analysis. All of them will be soon turned into publications in leading international sociological journals.

Summary of Conference:

General Infromation:

Progress Reports and New Projects
Annotations of Lections

Gallery

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