Integration orientations
On December 22 Igor Zadorin, director of "Euroasian Monitor", delivered a report on “Integration orientations of the population of post-Soviet world: dynamics and prospect (based on the results of inter-country research of the project "Eurasian monitor")”.
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| Игорь Задорин |
In his presentation Igor Zadorin focused on the specific features and some results of “Eurasian Monitor” project. This project is conducted by 16 private companies and non-governmental funds. At first the research included 3 or 4 countries; now 14 CIS countries (all the post-Soviet except for Turkmenistan) take part in the project.
The aim of the project is to compare Russia with neighboring countries, because in this way it is possible to evaluate development process. “Eurasian Monitor” is in many ways similar to “Eurobarometer”.
“Eurasian Monitor” comprises 10 questions about social well-being, which form the basis for the system of general indicators. The main indicators of social well-being include economic position of the country, economic position of family, social adaptation and social optimism. When there is some extra money, some additional items are added to the questionnaire.
The sample for each country is approximately 1000-2000 respondents. “Eurasian Monitor” helped to create a regular survey in CIS countries which was never done before. Now it is possible to compare the development of different countries and public attitudes in most of them.
Furthermore, Igor Zadorin presented some results of the project (on the example of the 11thwave). He compared different indicators of social well-being across CIS countries. Social well-being in this sample is not always connected with economic situation. For example, estimations of social well-being in Ukraine and Russia are lower than in Central Asian countries. Around half of the Uzbeks consider economic position of their country good. This could be partly explained by the fact that in Eastern countries it is not typical to say anything bad about their lives. Ukraine and Baltic states, on the contrary, estimate economic position of their countries relatively low, because they might compare themselves with Europe.
The population of many countries (Ukraine, Armenia, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Estonia, partly Russia) estimate economic position of their countries worse than economic position of their families. This could be determined by information people get from mass media. For instance, informational background in Ukraine is critical. In Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan people estimate economic position of their countries better than many other post-Soviet republics.
Social adaptation (“I’m satisfied with”) is the highest in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan and Estonia and the lowest in Armenia, Georgia and Ukraine. Russia is in the middle.
Furthermore, the level of social optimism is higher in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan than in Russia, Belorussia, Moldova and Baltic states.
From May 2008 to May 2009 (during the year when global economic crisis emerged) there was positive dynamics of social well-being estimations in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan and negative dynamics of these estimations in Belorussia, Ukraine, Russia and Moldova. It is worth noting that in Russia negative estimations mainly concern economic position of the country and in Moldova – economic position of the family.
Finally, Igor Zadorin turned to estimations of the authorities. Ukrainians and Latvians give the worst assessment to all the branches of authority (president, government, and parliament). There is a correlation between life satisfaction and positive estimation of the president of the country. The only exception is Ukraine, where the estimation of the president of the country is much lower than life satisfaction. Moreover, estimation of president of the country is connected with economic situation.