The International Conference «Agenda for Comparative Social Research»

The Higher School of Economics in St. Petersburg and Ronald Inglehart (University of Michigan) won a large grant of the Russian government. The creation of contemporary international research center headed by prominent international scientists is a condition for grant approval.

The Higher School of Economics in St. Petersburg and Ronald Inglehart (University of Michigan) won a large grant of the Russian government. The creation of contemporary international research center headed by prominent international scientists is a condition for grant approval.

The conference was the first step in this project. It was organized by the Laboratory for Comparative Social Studies, HSE St. Petersburg. The conference was devoted to the prospects of establishing an international research network. Its main feature will be comparative perspective.

More than 70 scientists from both Russia and CIS, as well as from American and European universities participated in the conference. Among the speakers were Ronald Inglehart (University of Michigan), Christian Welzel (Leuphana University), Eduard Ponarin and Daniel Alexandrov (HSE, St Petersburg), Robert Foa (Harvard University), Serban Tanasa (University of Michigan) and Vladimir Magun (HSE, Moscow).
Professor Daniel Alexandrov opened the conference. He briefly described the aims and objectives of the project and its network ideology. He noticed that many people love to talk about the distinction of Russia from other countries, but only few know how to prove it. He presented Professor Ronald Inglehart to the audience. Prof. Inglehart is the author of postmaterialism theory and president of the project World Values Survey, which is engaged in value systems comparative studies for many years.

Professor Inglehart explained the detailed principles for united research space in Russia and CIS. The data for World Values Survey is currently covering about 90% of the world's population. Indeed, the main idea of creating the WVS was the principle of openness and partnership instead of the classic university centers.
Inglehart also reported on the results of his own studies comparing happiness indicators in different countries. Russia's experience is unique in comparison to other countries and is of a real interest for scientists around the world. The thing is that Russia's level of happiness is very low, almost the same as for example in Zimbabwe and Iraq, although it seems that in other parameters between the two countries have very little in common. For more information about Ronald Inglehart’s lecture,  click here.

Professor Christian Welzel, the Vice President of the World Values Survey during the last few years, made his speech next. His report "Human Empowerment: A Master Frame to Study Values and Cultural Change" was devoted to his latest book due to be published soon. The focus of this study is the phenomenon of emancipation. The "emancipation" is a very broad term which refers to the empowerment of different groups in a global comparative perspective and the impact of the process on key indicators of social life.

 

The next speaker was Roberto Foa, researcher from Harvard University. He pointed that civil society in post-communist countries are traditionally considered to be weak. He used broader indicators for measuring civil society in Russia and Eastern Europe. For more information about Roberto Foa’s lecture,  click here.

 

The report of Serban Tanasa, researcher of the University of Michigan, aroused great public interest. It was devoted to the demographic decline problem in many countries around the world, issue so often discussed by the Russian society. Tanasa proved that the process of reducing the number of children per family is almost independent of the state policy aimed at stimulating or reducing the birth rate, the average life expectancy and many other factors that are traditionally considered to be significant. For more information about Serban Tanasa’s lecture,  click here.

The last speaker was Vladimir Magun, Professor HSE, ISRAS, who represented his joint study with Maxim Rudnev. Their work about comparisons of the basic Russian values with Europeans was based on the European Values Survey. It has a different methodology and a different approach than the study than its western counterparts researches. Scientists clustered all European countries values into 4 groups: openness to change, conservation, self-transcendence and self-enhancement. As a result, researchers have obtained some interesting data about the place of Russian citizens on the European values scale. For more information,  click here.

In conclusion, Eduard Ponarin explained that this conference will be the first in a series of meetings and workshops aimed at creation a new laboratory. The first phase of the project is scheduled for 2 years. The researchers are planning to get about 15 significant scientific papers published in international sociological journals by the end of 2012.

It is assumed that scientists will work in their cities and countries. They will gather at the conferences to discuss the results once in 4 months time. In this case, motivation for participation in the project is very strong. The most successful scientists whose progress in the study will be recognized as the largest, will go to summer school at the University of Michigan and a number of universities in Europe. Those who will not present conclusive results will be excluded from the project. Manifesto of participation in the project can be read  click here.

 

The list of participants

 

Photos by Ekaterina Kuldina