LCSR International Workshop - Day 5

by Pavel Kuzmichev

The fifth and the final day of the 3rd LCSR International Workshop was opened by Christopher Swader (LCSR HSE, Moscow) with his progress report on “Urban Loneliness?: Investigating the Roots of Russian Loneliness with WVS Data”. The dataset he uses is the 2011 WVS for Russia, Moscow, and Tatarstan. Using regression analysis he revealed that people in Moscow are lonelier than in Tatarstan and other parts of Russia. Chris’s results also showed that being a woman, single, or aged increases the probability of loneliness. Chris concluded that urban loneliness is less affected by objective social isolation factors.

Then Alla Marchenko (Kyiv National Taras Shevchenko University, Ukraine) presented her new project “Comparative Perspective of Civic Engagement in Europe”. Alla analysesthe profile of civic engagement in Europe, in particular volunteering as a form of social engagement and civic engagement with an accent on political matters and belonging and acting in the frame of any group.

After a short coffee-break a guest lecture by Benjamin Lind (HSE, Moscow) was the final presentation of the workshop. He uses the concept of Blau Space to analyze the phenomenon of the falling number of memberships in trade unions.  Blau Space is a multi-dimensional coordinate system specified by a set of different socio-demographic characteristics. In sociology, this concept is used to describe the communicative proximity of individuals or groups in society. It is assumed that people who are located close to each other at Blau Space (i.e. have similar socio-demographic characteristics) will interact more often than those who are divided by distance. Using the data on the USA, Benjamin tries to respond to the question ’Where did trade unions disappear during the past decades?’ He is interested in questions such as ‘do people prefer alternative forms of civic engagement to trade union membership’, or ‘can the termination of participation in the activities of trade unions be read as a rejection of participation in public life in general.’ If the unions were replaced as the main form of civic participation by other organizations, then what type of organization would be the most likely option for former members of trade unions? The main hypothesis of this study suggests that an ex union member can join civil society organizations which are located closest to trade unions in Blau Space.

Ronald Inglehart and Eduard Ponarin delivered the closing speeches and summarized the results of the workshop.  The event ended with congratulations to Irina Vartanova, who had her birthday today.

by Pavel Kuzmichev