The Laboratory for Comparative Social Research announces the next  regular seminar, which will be held in Saint-Petersburg (Sedova st., 55-2, room 303) on October 13 at 18-00 p.m. Margarita Zavadskaya (LCSR, Senior research fellow) and Elena Sirotkina (LCSR, Associate Researcher) will deliver a report “Politics in Hard Times or Rally Round the Flag? Evidence from the survey experiment”.

Mechanisms of political accountability and attribution of political responsibility have always been the cornerstone of political studies. Traditionally it is assumed that economy operates as a strong predictor of mass political moods. On the other hand, almost each country has ever lived through the period of national consolidation and rise of patriotic sentiments, especially at the times of military conflicts. The latter is known in the literature as ‘the rally round the flag’ effect, which results in short-term spikes in popular support by the population. The Russian case poses a genuine empirical puzzle as the country is undergoing a creeping economic recession, which is accompanied by the anomalously high level of political support. During the survey experiment respondents were exposed to two treatments: questions about national pride and questions about economic crisis that preceded respondents’ assessments of efficiency of the State Duma, the president and the government.

Everyone interested is invited!

Working language is English.

Videoconference with Moscow office of the LCSR (Krivokolenny Pereulok , 3, room 333) will be provided. Guests from Moscow are invited to make a request for a pass to the building to Ani Muradyan (amuradyan@hse.ru) by 11 am of the seminar’s day.

Guests from St. Petersburg are invited to make a request for a pass to the building to Violetta Korsunova (vikorsunova@hse.ru) by 11 am of the seminar’s day.

Also after the seminar a videotape will be put up after the summary of the presentation.