After Hofstede proposed individualism-collectivism (IDV-COLL) as a dimension of national culture, numerous studies have used that name to refer to individual-level psychological constructs, based on theories and empirical operationalizations that are not necessarily compatible with the Hofstede tradition. This has created confusion. In this study, we investigate whether the two revised Minkov-Hofstede dimensions of national culture - IDV-COLL and “flexibility-monumentalism” (FLX-MON) - have individual-level counterparts and if they are isomorphic (have the same structure at both levels of analysis). We find that the three main conceptual facets of national COLL (conformism, ascendancy, and exclusionism) and the three of MON (self-esteem, self-stability, and generosity) materialize as six independent individual-level dimensions in a nationally representative sample from Mongolia (n = 1500). This structure emerged in a confirmatory factor analysis, multidimensional scaling, and hierarchical cluster analyses. This is the first series of analyses of the structure of the individual-level ingredients of national IDV-COLL and FLX-MON.

In this essay, we first briefly recount the post-Soviet history of social science in Russia, with particular attention to the role of international collaborations in spurring its growth, and we review the accelerating attacks on university autonomy and international collaborations that preceded Russia’s unprovoked attack on Ukraine in February 2022. Then we consider developments since the February 2022 invasion that, in our view, signal the demise of academic freedom. We consider how Russia-based social scientists have negotiated the mounting challenges to the practice of their craft. We draw on interviews with Russian and American social scientists involved in international collaborations conducted in summer 2021 and interviews with Russian social scientists carried out in spring and summer 2022, as well as scholarly and journalistic accounts of developments within Russian universities and research institutes.

The spread of COVID-19 sparked debates about whether incumbents should focus on saving lives or the economy. Politicians’ decisions in this dilemma could determine whether they remain in office. “Saving the economy” is predicted to affect re-election chances positively in economic voting theory. However, a public health crisis can shift the electorate’s preferences in favor of expanding healthcare support at the cost of the economy. We examine whether there is a trade-off between “saving lives” and “saving the economy” for the incumbent in receiving higher political support. Based on two experiments conducted in Russia, we measure if individuals are more likely to support, vote for, and extend the power of the incumbent based on their policies. Although both experimental factors encouraged support, the economy-driven policy had a larger effect on voting than the healthcare-driven one.

The child-rearing scale (CRS) as a measure of authoritarianism holds promise for cross-cultural public opinion research but its validity beyond the Western and, in particular, American context has never been investigated. We address this gap by studying the scale’s validity in Russia, a particularly interesting case due to its long history as a left-wing authoritarian regime. We also combine data from mass and elite surveys conducted in 2020 to explore the structure and performance of the CRS across different subpopulations. Using these data, we replicate the overall structure of the scale and confirm its validity. However, we also show that some indicators perform differently across masses and elites. Our findings suggest that the CRS is a valid measure of authoritarianism outside the United States but also show that its external linkages can vary across specific groups, depending on the country under examination.

Suicide is a major cause of death in Central and Northeast Europe and Northeast Asia. The literature on this geographic pattern has not reached consensus. The authors propose an analysis of the view that national culture may be a risk factor. They use measures of culture from a quasi-nationally representative 2015–2016 database, with over 50,000 respondents from 53 countries, and WHO suicide data for 2016. A correlation analysis across items reveals four cultural features of countries with high suicide rates (r with suicide rates > .40): parents are less likely to socialize children for helping, sharing money, forgiving offenses, and expressing feelings. These four items yield a single “harshness” factor (r with national suicide rates = .69). Measures of self-construals reveal that people in countries with high suicide rates are less helpful, generous, and forgiving, have less interest in others, lower personal stability, poorer mood, lower self-esteem and self-confidence, and use less deliberation before important decisions (r with suicide rates > .40). These items yield another “harsh culture” factor, strongly correlated with the previous. Harsh culture, alcoholism rates, climatic harshness, and social hardship (short life expectancy plus child and maternal mortality), explain 71 percent of the national variation in suicide.

There is a need for a simple and graspable model of culture covering the main cultural differences across modern nations. A two-dimensional model might be a reasonable choice. We analyzed data from the World Values Survey and the European Values Study to test whether different two-dimensional models are factor rotations of each other. We took into account criticisms regarding the choice of items in Inglehart’s analysis of the same data source. Nevertheless, we replicated his dimensions. By means of factor rotation by various angles we aligned our dimensions and those of Inglehart with other previously published sets of dimensions. Thus, although different studies seem to have produced different two-dimensional solutions depending on the study design, those solutions are actually related to each other. There is no right or wrong placement of axes—they describe the same relationships between cultural elements. By showing the positions of various sets of cultural dimensions relative to each other, this study adds another viewpoint that can help researchers make sense of the huge variety of cultural dimensions in the literature.

Many datasets used in the social sciences have a hierarchical structure, where lower units of aggregation are ‘nested’ in higher units. In many disciplines, such data are analyzed using multilevel modeling (MLM, also known as hierarchical linear modeling). However, MLM as a framework is relatively unknown in economics. Instead, economists use a range of separate econometric methods, including cluster-robust standard errors, fixed effects models, models with cross-level interactions, and estimated dependent variable models. Relying on an extensive literature review, this paper describes this methodological divide and provides a detailed comparison between MLM and ‘economic methods’ in their abilities to deal with three methodological challenges inherent in multilevel data ‒ clustering, omitted variables, and coefficients' heterogeneity across groups. We unfold the comparative advantages of these two methodological approaches and provide practical recommendations about which of them should be used, why, and in what settings.

Decades ago, Hofstede claimed that dimensions of culture are entirely subjective creations. In this study, we claim that some measures of culture have an objective element. We focus on Hofstede's classic model, reduced to just two dimensions: individualism-collectivism (IDV-COLL) and long-term orientation, renamed “flexibility-monumentalism” (FLX-MON). Recent studies showed that: (1) all valid and reproducible dimensions of culture, from all models, are essentially variants of these two, (2) this 2D model has a close analogue in dimensions of behaviors measured across the world's countries, (3) the same model emerges across the 50 US states, (4) an analysis of all recurrent culture-related items in the World Values Survey (WVS) yields a similar 2D model that can be further aligned with it after targeted rotation, (5) the model is aligned approximately with the Earth's geographic axes. In this study, we used WVS items and expanded Minkov's IDV-COLL and FLX-MON 55-country indices with scores for another 47 countries. Our IDV-COLL and FLX-MON 102-country indices are predictors of 20 important extraneous variables, relevant in international business (such as transparency-corruption, political and economic freedom, competitiveness, innovation output, ICT adoption, fatalities in transport and industry, gender equality, economic equality, educational achievement, working hours, violent crime, etc.). Of all dimensions of culture, IDV-COLL and FLX-MON are the only predictors of the two factors behind these extraneous variables. IDV-MON and FLX-MON also yield the highest correlations with objective geographic variables, such as latitude-longitude, Welzel's “cool water”, as well as pathogen prevalence. This gives further credibility to the revised Minkov-Hofstede 2D model and confirms its objective element.