The LCSS regular seminar: "Eurasian monitor"

Igor Zadorin, the head of the research group “Zircon”, presented main results of monitoring of social population mood of the former Soviet Union in the framework of the Eurasian monitor at the regular seminar of LCSS on April 28, 2011.

In the introduction the speaker told what the reason was for the initiation of “Eurasian monitor”. By the beginning of the 21^st century the measurement system of social indicators has already been studied in every detail. However, one question was open: how to evaluate the findings? So, there was a necessity for their comparison in order to have the correct and more complete interpretation of Russian realities.

The basis for the “Eurasian monitor” is the regular (every six months) survey of adults (from 18 years) of post-Soviet countries by the means of the uniform and standardized questionnaire. The national representative sample consists of 1100-2000 respondents in each of the 14 countries (the number varies from survey to survey, it may be less). The questionnaire includes two parts: a permanent (monitoring) one (there are questions about current issues, social well-being, attitudes towards integration, etc.) and a variable (thematic) one, which contains questions about one topic.

Comparative analysis of population’s social well-being. The concept of “social well-being” includes questions about the economic situation of the country, the level of the social adaptation, self-appraisal of the family financial situation and the level of social optimism/pessimism.

There is quite big differentiation in the assessments of economic situation of the country. As the researchers suggest, the differences are explained by the fact that this indicator is influenced by: information, objective economic situation and national culture. Concerning the level of social adaptation, which is measured by the means of the question about life satisfaction, in 2009 the population of Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan were more satisfied with their life than other countries. This may sound strange, but perhaps the fact is that in eastern culture, people don’t talk bad about their life, because this could cause negative attitudes from the state. We can assume that Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan have the highest percentage of social optimists (who believe that they will live better than now in a year) for the same reason.

Evaluation of authorities’ activity (president, government, parliament). The highest level of trust in authorities is in Uzbekistan (82-85% of respondents). Among all countries, there is a regularity in terms of positive ratings above all is the president, then the government and then the parliament.

Integration guidelines. This notion is expressed in the following questions: what countries from the list, according to respondent’s opinion, his country should unite with and in which of countries’ unions he would like to live. The results show that there is a high level of autonomism (my country shouldn’t unite with anyone). Most people want to live in their own country (without integration with others) or in the European Union.

The main thematic projects of the “Euromonitor”:

1. Russian language in the New Independent States (2007, 2008);

2. What we are interested in each other. The Potential of Humanitarian Communication of post-Soviet countries (2008);

3. Our general history. The Perception of History of the Twentieth Century by the population and the youth of post-Soviet countries (2009).

In conclusion, Igor Zadorin noted that one of the key problems of “Eurasian monitor” is the financing. This project is organized by private companies, and the financing comes mainly from its own funds. Because of this, the number of participating countries is not permanent. However, as Leonid Kosals, Senior Researcher fellow of LCSS, mentioned, non-governmental organization makes the project more effective and independent of the interests of the “top”. There was a proposal to add data set of “Euromonitor” in the Joint Economic and Sociological Data Archive that will increase the interest to this study and, possibly, attract the investment.