Projects

The Laboratory for Comparative Social Research (LCSR) focuses on the analysis of norms and values, explanation of the dynamics of value changes that took place in Russia and other former Soviet countries in the last 30 years, correlation of these dynamics with political and economic changes in the global context, identification of distinctive characteristics of Russian society in comparison with more than 90 countries, interregional comparative research within Russia, and the clarification of correlation between cultural and historical characteristics and economic development of the regions.

The strategic goals of the Laboratory are the following:

• human values and cultural change;
• subjective well-being and happiness;
• trust, social capital and corruption;
• gender (in)equality and gender attitudes;
• tolerance, nationalism and migration;
• political regimes;
• religion and secularization;
• cross-cultural data collection and analysis;
• and other research fields.

The Laboratory invites the participation of young researchers, postgraduate students, and MA and BA students in the social sciences. We hold regular competitions concerning preparation of publications in peer-reviewed journals. Also, we conduct open methodological seminars on an ongoing basis. There are about 50 research projects supported by the Laboratory to be published in international academic journals. Professor Ronald Inglehart and other key members оf the Laboratory supervise these projects.

1. Ongoing Projects

Research field «Human Values and Cultural Change» ↑↑↑

Social Class and Cultrual Consumption in Europe: Impact of Self-Exression Values (2017-)

Author and Executor of the Project: Korsunova V.I.

This project tackles the relationship between social class and cultural consumption in comparative perspective. This link has already been tackled by different scholars who analysed the effects of various social determinants on the preferences in everyday life. However, the cross-national variation of the link between the phenomena is mostly discussed in terms of economic or political background, neglecting the issues of cultural context of the society. Here I aim to look at the effects of value orientations on the class differentiation in the field of cultural consumption in European countries. In particular, I analyse how the level of self-expression values affect the strength of the link between social class position and the intensity of cultural practices. I argue that the higher level of self-expression values in the country leads to the decline in class differentiation while increase the intensity of cultural activities.

Emancipative Values and Film Industry: Naked Facts from IMDb (2015-)

Author and Executor of the Project: Volchenko O.V., Korsunova V.I.

This project analyses film industry as a social phenomenon. Most studies tackling the meanings and symbols in the cinema are carried out in qualitative perspective (Finney 1993, Baker 2010). Some of them focus on the biographies of the authors and their private lives as the basis for creating cultural products (Chalmers 1978, Zolberg 1990, Hauser 2011). Other studies examine the commercialisation of cultural production (Ravid 1999, De Vany & Walls 2002). Yet other papers explore the depiction of risky behaviour in films, e.g. tobacco use (Trasher 2008), alcohol consumption (Steudler 1987), and drug addiction (Iannicelli 2001). Our paper fills in two research gaps. For one thing, it reveals the links between people's values and visual cultural production that can showcase the effects of changing values on culture. The other part of our research concerns the use of the Internet Movie Database (IMDB) as a data set reflecting changes in modern societies. We believe that IMDB represents a vast area underexplored by social scientists and getting most attention from the computer science (Peralta 2007), cognitive studies (Rubin & Steyvers 2009), and network modelling (Fatemi & Tokarchuk 2012, Gallos et al. 2013, Ahmed et al. 2007). We track the changes in film topics provided by the IMDb together with theWorld values Survey (WVS) and European Values Study (EVS) data to see how the changes in people's values are linked to the popularity of related topics. Our special focus lies on the link between emancipative values (Alexander & Welzel 2011) and the proportion of films containing nudity. The sample contained all European countries across 1985-2000. The key IMDb variables were as follows: plot keywords, the year and country of film production. We count the share of films which contain keywords rerering to “nudity”, including “nudity”, “female-nudity”,“male-nudity”, “front-nudity”, “bare-breasts”, etc. by year and country. After that, the share of films containing nudity was regressed on the level of emancipative values with controls for the level of economic development (GDP per capita), higher education (per cent of enrolled in tertiary education), and the median age of the population. We found that the level of emancipative values was positively related to the share of films with nudity in the following years. We also revealed that the growing education level in this period was paralleled by a decrease in the share of female nudity and a rise in the share of films contating male nudity.

Does Milk Matter? Genetic Adaptation to Environment: The Effect of Lactase Persistence on Cultural Change (2014-)

Author and Executor of the Project: Shcherbak A.N.

Considering diet as often a product of adaptation to geographic environment, this paper suggests that not only amount of food (food abundance) is important, but what kind of foods people eat may also affect social change. One of the reasons for variation in diet is food intolerances as a result of adaptation to the environment. This paper investigates one case – lactase persistence. This trait is associated with different genotypes of LCT gene. Lactase persistence is mostly spread among northern Europeans, and is also found among some African and Asian nomadic populations. Such unique trait is usually explained in the gene-culture coevolution framework: selective pressure for it had to be followed by expansion of dairying and herding. Empirical analysis based on 78 populations reveals strong and positive association between share of lactase persistent population and distribution of emancipative values. Two causal mechanisms are suggested: a) demographic trends (lower fertility and lower child mortality in lactose tolerant societies) and b) specific type of agriculture based on integration of crop growing and cattle husbandry (higher urban population rate in lactose tolerant societies).

Publications:
Scherbak, A.N. (2015). Does Milk Matter? Genetic Adaptation to Environment: The Effect of Lactase Persistence on Cultural Change. Working Papers by NRU Higher School of Economics. Series: Sociology, WP BRP 64/SOC/2015.

 

Research field «Subjective Well-being and Happiness» ↑↑↑

Disentangling Subjective Well-Being Components on Individual and Country Levels (2016-)

Project Manager: Shirokanova A.A.
Project Executors: Shirokanova A.A., Ponarin E.D.

The goal of this small project is to improve our understanding of the contextual and individual effects on subjective well-being. Individuals with high and low levels of well-being react differently in similar social situations. This fact has driven my interest into testing a more precise version of the SWB index based on the WVS questionnaire (Inglehart et al. 2008) and identifying groups of countries by the values of this index’s components.

The Effect of Work Values upon the Association between Life Satisfaction and Job Satisfaction (2016-)

Author and Executor of the Project: Soboleva N.

The relation between life and job satisfaction is likely to be influenced not only by objective characteristics but also by work values. The study aims to disclose the impact of intrinsic and extrinsic work values upon the difference between life and job satisfaction. The European Values Study 2008-2009 is used as dataset. I apply two approaches to the measurement of dependent variable. The first one is the difference between life and job satisfaction. The second one is using life satisfaction as dependent variable and job satisfaction as predictor. The advantages and disadvantages of both approaches are discussed. The results show that both approaches lead to rather close results but if we treat job satisfaction as a predictor of life satisfaction less variables are significant. According to both approaches, intrinsic motivation decreases the difference between life and job satisfaction whereas extrinsic motivation does not have any effect. Also the number of significant intrinsic values is higher when we use the first approach.

Publications: 
Соболева Н.Э. Влияние трудовых ценностей на взаимосвязь между удовлетворенностью работой и удовлетворенностью жизнью (по данным European Values Survey) // Методы и процедуры социологических исследований: традиции и инновации. Сб. ст., посвященный памяти первого декана ф-та социологии НИУ ВШЭ А.О. Крыштановского / отв. ред. и вступит. ст. О.А. Оберемко. М.: НИУ ВШЭ, 2017. С. 146-159.

Perception of Mutual Help among Single Europeans after the Great Recession (2014-)

Author and Executor of the Project: Shirokanova A.A.

Singles are a fast growing part of European population. The status of living single has traditionally been transitory, but in late modernity people can enjoy singledom as a life-style. Qualitative studies of these ‘new singles’ (DePaolo 2007) show that they cluster in urban colonies and tend to enjoy their life. This project aims to identify whether the great recession which started in 2008 affected the perception of mutual help among European singles. Living alone is associated with higher economic insecurity. The direction of change in the perception of mutual help in the times of crisis cannot be clearly determined. In some countries, fading social expenditures are associated with higher self-transcendence and stronger mutual help; in others self-transcendence would shrink, so that people would rely more on themselves. As shown by Welzel (2010:172), the relation between values with altruism and collective action are positively moderated by the country level of self-expression values. Therefore, I assume that in the countries with high average self-expression values, one can expect stronger mutual support attitudes among the population. At the same time, individuals in the countries with lower self-expression averages may be expected to “roll back” to low mutual support in the times of crisis. Independent variables are individual values (Schwartz’s basic values and the equivalent of Welzel’s self-expression values) and socio-demographic characteristics. Country-level independent variables are the averages of four upper-level basic values, self-expression values, and GDP loss in 2008, to measure the strength of the economic crisis in the country. The data come from two waves of the European Social Survey, before (2006) and after (2012) the crisis. The sample includes more than 40,000 individuals from the 22 countries. The analysis design is cross-sectional multilevel regression with Bayesian estimation.

Publications: 
Широканова А.А. Уровень счастья одиноких людей снижается с возрастом // IQ.HSE.RU. 2016. 11 февраля. URL: https://iq.hse.ru/news/177663731.html.

 

Research field «Trust, Social Capital and Corruption» ↑↑↑

Police informal economic activities in transition societies: the “police culture” role (2013-)

Project Manager: Maksimova A.E.
Project Executors: Maksimova A.E., Kosals L.Y.

 The project is devoted to informal economic activity of the police in transformation societies on the ground of data from Russia, Kazakhstan, Latvia and Bulgaria. The case of transformation societies move the situation closer to free informal market where the main power in the hands of actors and social interactions, as institutions are weak and have low ability to influence. It might provide better understanding of the social mechanism inside this activity.There are two main research questions.

The first one is reconsidering the concept of police culture and its’ relative role in expanding of informal economic activity.

While Western Europe capitalism during modern time has been characterized by moral predominance of formality, post soviet societies occupied with moral predominance of informality, which is essential for life here. It persists as modus operandi – the way of doing things, while formal rules are more or less ceremonial or fulfill unnatural functions. This point of view might give an explanation to high levels of informal economic activities in these societies, including police organization. Nevertheless, criminological literature point on the police culture as a key determinant of police officers behavior. The concept of police culture is controversial: it’s defined either as professional or organizational characteristic. While adherents of “professional culture” point of view emphasize common tendencies that are really exist, researches on organizational subcultures reveal significant differences from department to department that actually explain officers’ behavior there. In the paper we suggest to consider the police culture as a mediator between environmental and individual determinants and the spread of informal economic activities of police officers. We are going to test the hypothesis that police culture (as an organizational feature) is able to restrain or enable the propensity for informality among policemen, in other words restrain or enable moral predominance of informality that exist in the society.

The second paper raises the question of the interrelation between legality and legitimacy of different types of informal economic activities among policemen. Tight restrictions on the officers’ economic life lead beyond the legal line a wide range of the activities ranging from side job as guardian to corruption. The paper shows that police culture while prohibits and restrains some of the earnings, approve others. Moreover legitimate activities are not a subject of formal sanctions. The work explains revealed paradox and its’ function in the police organization in transition societies.

Publications: 
Kosals, L., & Maksimova, A. (2015). Informality, Crime and Corruption in Russia: A Review of Recent Literature. Theoretical Criminology 19(2), 278-288. DOI: 10.1177/1362480615581099.

A Cross-National Comparison of the Effect of Work-Related Factors on Membership in Voluntary Associations (2014-)

Project Manager: Spencer S.B.
Project Executors: Spencer S.B., Almakaeva A.M.

This article examines how employment, supervisory status, and other occupational characteristics (creativity, autonomy or intellectual nature of work) influence membership rates in voluntary associations in cross-national comparison. This research combines individual-level data from the World Values Survey Wave 5 and 6, and country-level Freedom House data, in multilevel regression modeling. This research demonstrates that respondents in the labor force are more likely to report membership in a range of voluntary organizations, controlling for a range of individual and country-level characteristics. Similarly, employed respondents who are work supervisors are also more likely to report membership in most countries, while creativity at work increases the likelihood of membership in some settings.

Publications: 
Spencer S.B., Almakaeva A.M. A Cross-National Comparison of the Effect of Work-Related Factors on Membership in Voluntary Associations // XVI Апрельская международная научная конференция по проблемам развития экономики и общества: в 4 кн. / Отв. ред.: Е. Г. Ясин. Кн. 4. М. : Издательский дом НИУ ВШЭ, 2016. P. 101-109.

Family Ties and Formation of Generalized Trust (2015-)

Author and Executor of the Project: Almakaeva A.M.

The current study focuses on the relations between ingroup, particularized and generalized trust. Although scholars usually differentiate generalized from particularized trust the distinction between particularized and ingroup trust has not been emphasized. However, this distinction may shed an additional light on the controversial evidence on the relations between generalized and particularized trust. Seminal works of Banfield (1958) and Fukuyama (1995) postulate a negative effect of ingroup ties on generalized trust. At the same time, empirical evidence has demonstrated contradictory findings. While one group of studies points out negative effect of family ties on generalized trust (Alesina & Giuliano, 2013), another group detects a positive association between particularized and generalized trust (Delhey & Welzel, 2012; Freitag & Traunmüller, 2009; Newton & Zmerli, 2011; Uslaner, 2002). Presumably, this positive interlink is the result of combining trust in family and trust in known people into a single additive index that may be misleading from theoretical point of view. Only in relatively small groups intensive social ties might be a reason for creating «bonding» social capital. Trust in family is, indisputably, the indicator which catches this type of ingroup interactions but trust in known people is not. Therefore, for the sake of clarity it is better to separate ingroup from particularized trust and treat them as distinct concepts.
Preliminary analysis shows stable positive interlink between trust in known people and generalized trust. The strength of this impact is stable across low and highly developed societies. However, the influence of family trust, indeed, differs depending on the level of human development. It is significantly positive in developed countries and negative but weak in developing countries.

 

Research field «Gender (In)Equality and Gender Attitudes» ↑↑↑

Attitudes to Abortion, Divorce and Pre-marital sex in Republics of the Former USSR: Latent Class Approach (2014-)

Project Manager: Lopatina S.L.
Project Executors: Kostenko V.V., Ponarin E.D.

Анализируется отношение граждан девяти постсоветских стран к проблемам абортов, разводов и добрачных связей на материале шестой волны опроса «Всемирное исследование ценностей» за 2012–2014 гг. по Азербайджану, Армении, Грузии, Беларуси, Казахстану, Кыргызстану, России, Узбекистану и Украине. Используя анализ латентных классов и регрессионное моделирование, авторы показывают, что самые значимые различия наблюдаются между странами, где влияние ислама на традиционность общества в отношении абортов, разводов и добрачного секса меньше, чем влияние религиозности. Например, в преимущественно мусульманском, но довольно светском Казахстане отношение к этим вопросам значительно менее жесткое, чем у населения христианской и очень религиозной Армении.

Publications:
Лопатина С.Л., Костенко В.В., Понарин Э.Д. Дело не в исламе: отношение к абортам, разводам и добрачному сексу в девяти постсоветских государствах //  Журнал социологии и социальной антропологии . 2016. Т. XIX. № 3. С. 95-115. 
Готовится англоязычная публикация.

Gender Attitudes and Achievement Motivation across Europe (2016-)

Author and Executor of the Project: Soboleva N.

Today labour market situation in Europe is influenced by a shift from traditional to egalitarian gender attitudes. This study aims at revealing the association of gender attitudes, achievement motivation and realization of this achievement motivation by working women in Europe. The dataset is the fifth wave of European Social Survey (2010). 26 countries are included into the analysis. The main focus of investigation is on working women but sometimes men are included for comparative reasons. Multilevel regression modelling is applied. According to the results, women with more egalitarian gender attitudes show a higher achievement motivation and are more likely to be able to influence policy decisions in the organization. However, both these effects are not universal. The effect on achievement motivation is relevant only for countries with higher female participation in the labour market, which confirms the results based on descriptive statistics. On the contrary, the effect on possibility to influence decisions is true for countries with lower female involvement in the labour market. The impact of achievement motivation upon the possibility to influence decisions is very strong in all the countries. Overall, not all women with egalitarian gender attitudes are willing to pursue them in their professional life. The reason for that may lie in the fact that women still carry the double burden of doing most part of the housework and contribute to family income at the same time. Interestingly, men with more egalitarian gender attitudes tend to attach more importance to using their own initiative on their job although this effect is weaker than for women. This could be possibly explained by the fact that people who have modernization values in one area (for instance, attitudes to gender equality) tend to have modernization values in other areas (for example, work values), as well.

 

Research field «Political Regimes» ↑↑↑

How Multilevel Elite Loyalty Strengthens Electoral Authoritarianism: Evidence from Gubernatorial Elections in Russia (2015-)

Project Manager: Sirotkina E.V.
Project Executors: Sirotkina E.V., Karandashova S.A.

Maintain autocratic regimes is widely acknowledged to require elite loyalty. However, does this imply that various elite groups equally contribute to the daily performance of an autocratic regime and to winning elections? Based on empirical evidence of recent gubernatorial elections in Russia we explore the effect of conflicts between governor and elites on multiple levels on gubernatorial electoral results and voter turnout. We find that conflicts between governors and the mayors of regional capitals have the only significant and robust negative effect on both electoral turnout and results. Encouraging the loyalty of these mayors secures smoother political machinery in the most electorally significant areas of the region and thus can determine the outcome of an electoral campaign.

Publications: 
Sirotkina E., Karandashova S. (2016). How Multilevel Elite Loyalty Strengthens Electoral Authoritarianism: Evidence from Gubernatorial Elections in Russia. Working Papers by NRU Higher School of Economics. Series: Political Science, WP BRP 36/PS/2016. 
Сироткина Е.В., Карандашова С.А. Выборы глав российских регионов: роль конфликтов губернатора с региональными элитами в исходе голосования // Полис. Политические исследования. 2018. (В печати).

How to Get Away with Murder in Russia: Political Support in the Times of Crisis. Evidence from the Survey Experiment (2016-)

Project Manager: Gilev A.V.
Project Executors: Sirotkina E.V., Zavadskaya M.A.

Economic crises are believed to erode domestic political support for the existing regime. However, in comparison with democracies, autocracies enjoy more of a leeway in their responses to such crises and economic downturns due to their ability to strengthen their clientelist ties and increase the level of repression ('the tragic brilliance'). Since 2013, the Russian economy has been undergoing a deep and protracted recession, which was further aggravated by the annexation of Crimea and the subsequent imposition of international sanctions. The latter effectively slashed the purchasing capacity and disposable income of the Russian citizens by half. At the same time, the annexation of Crimea provided the regime with a significant boost in popularity – up to 80% – thereby leading to 'the rally around the flag' effect in Russia. The latter consolidated the citizens and reinvigorated the feeling of national pride. Taking into consideration these two contradictory tendencies – economic downturn and patriotic consolidation – is there evidence of Russian citizens willing to punish the incumbent authorities for the economic crisis? Does the 'the rally around the flag' help the incumbent in the times of economic crisis? Drawing on the evidence from the survey experiment we test 1) the priming effect of potentially sensitive questions in order to address the issues of their influence on support for governing authorities and 2) causal effects of deteriorating economy and the rally around the flag effect on how respondents assess the authorities. The survey was carried out by the Levada Center in August 2016 using a representative sample of 1601 people aged over 18 years. The survey included two treatment questions: 1) Do you support the Crimea's rejoining the Russian Federation? and 2) Some experts claim that Russia is undergoing an economic crisis, do you agree with this? The outcome variables are the respondents' assessment of the State Duma, the president, and the government efficiency. Conclusions drawn from the survey experiment are twofold. First, we find the priming effect of sensitive question about Crimea: those who were exposed to this question evaluate the president more favorably, but this tendency does not extend to their assessment of the State Duma and the government. Those exposed to the question about the economic crisis, reveal a more critical assessment of the State Duma and the government, while the president' s approval remains unchanged. The State Duma does not benefit from 'the rally ‘round the flag', while the president is not punished for the crisis. Second, when we compare the mediation effect of the rally ‘round the flag under economic crisis with the economic crisis alone, we find that the presidential support increases while those of the State Duma and the government decreases. In the opposite case, when economic crisis intervenes with patriotic fervor - the president’s support is not affected, while the Duma and the government suffer from lower estimates.

Publications: 
Сироткина Е.В., Завадская М.А. Когда власть несет ответственность: исследование атрибуции ответственности власти в сравнительной перспективе // Политическая наука. 2016. № 4. С. 242-260. 
Ефремова В.Н., Завадская М.А., Сироткина Е.В. Поколение нулевых: политическая подотчетность в условиях экономического кризиса // Вестник Пермского университета. Серия: Политология. 2016. № 4. С. 44-65. 
Планируется также выход препринта и двух англоязычных статей.

Executive Constraints and Economic Growth in Autocracies (2017-)

Author and Executor of the Project: Mitrokina E.M.

In the work I address the question of how the degree of power that a dictator has impact economic performance using within and moment-based estimators. Political regime impose boundaries on the leader, however, may be violated if the leader has enough power. Personalism denoting the degree of leaders’ personal power and his ability to influence decision-making process without constraints is important for policy outcomes. Focusing on the observable indicators of personalism I distinguish power concentration, executive constraints, and leader-elite interactions as the factors that reflect personalisation of power in a regime along with institutions that to a certain degree impose boundaries on the leader, however, may be violated if the leader has enough power. I find that higher personalisation of power has negative impact on economic performance. Countries where dictators stay longer in power and have opportunity to purge the elites in general perform worse economically. The work shows only the general tendency that countries where a leader has a lot of power perform worse compared to those where the leader cannot make decisions on his own without the probability of being removed if the decisions harm the elite’s interest. Leaders may have different incentives that explain their behaviour, but still more power in hands of one man, the greater is the probability for the country to be economically unsuccessful.

Publications:
Выступление на Седьмом международном семинаре ЛССИ «Subjective Well-being and Growing Inequality across the Globe» (апрель 2017), доклад «Executive Constraints and Economic Growth in Autocracies».
К выходу готовится препринт.

The Openness and Democracy as Determinants of the International Terrorism Spread Trajectories (2017-)

Author and Executor of the Project: Chmel K.Sh.

International Terrorism is one of the most crucial issues of globalized world. This challenge of modern time have exploded scientific agenda of the last decade. While the political actors allover the world wage a struggle against the terrorist activities and eliminate the consequences of terrorist attacks, scientists are concerned about the theoretical foundations of terrorism and the empirical determinants of this phenomenon. The current state of a airs illustrates that terrorism is tend to be dynamic in long-run perspectives. Such empirical characteristics of terrorist activity as the types of used weapons, the damage area, incentives and goals, ethnic and geographic composition of the terrorist groups actuate from year to year. For instance, Al Qaeda group in 2001 focused on political and economic incentives, while the ISIS in 2016 declares the fight against modernization, guided by the Islam values framework. There are many causal mechanisms which describe how terrorism reacts on significant changes in its determinants. In other words, researchers have already estimated correlations between the spread of international terrorism and social, economic and political predictors. However are these interrelations are consistent and stable in a long-run?

Publications:
Выступление на XVIII Апрельской международной научной конференции по проблемам развития экономики и общества (апрель 2017), доклад «Влияние ресурсного богатства на трансформации в соревновательных авторитарных режимах» (на англ. языке).
К выходу готовится препринт.

The Influence of the Resource Wealth on the Transformations in Competitive Authoritarian Regimes (2016-)

Author and Executor of the Project: Chmel K.Sh.

This research is devoted to the regime transitions in the countries of the gray area defined as competitive authoritarian regimes. The combination of the resource wealth theory and the assumptions of the competitive authoritarianism provide good results in the estimation of institutional quality and the explanation of the regime transition mechanisms, avoiding the democracy bias which commonly appears in the modern political science. Under the conditions of the instability in competitive authoritarian regimes, the change of institutional quality is particularly meaningful. A closer look at the economic institutions especially on institutions of the property rights and the institutionalized guarantees, focusing on the resource-rich countries where different actors are interested in the resource rents. At the same time, authoritarian governments are interested in staying in an office and the expropriating rents. However, the causal mechanisms which explain how this trade-off can be solved are not developed. Hence, the research question is the following. Do the institutionalized incentives and the formal rules in the form of the Investment profile affect similarly the transitions in the resource rich and the resource poor competitive authoritarian countries?

Publications:
Выступление на Седьмом международном семинаре ЛССИ «Subjective Well-being and Growing Inequality across the Globe» (апрель 2017), доклад «The Openness and Democracy as Determinants of the International Terrorism Spread Trajectories».
К выходу готовится статья.

The Recipe for Democracy? The Spread of European Diet and Political Change (2015-)

Author and Executor of the Project: Shcherbak A.N.

The paper aims to reveal the relationship between improvement in human diet and transition to democracy. The spread of a ‘European diet’ – the diet with historically unprecedented high proportion of animal proteins in daily calories intake – is likely to be one of the factors of regime change since 1992. In contrast to other studies, I regard European diet as an outcome of long historical transformation and show that improvement in nutrition preceded regime change. To get data on nutrients consumption around the world I apply to the Food balance sheets data from FAOSTAT. Based on this data I are able to define a European diet as the one containing animal protein-rich items (mostly, meat and dairy), alcohol beverages and sugar. Using OLS, factor analysis and SEM I test the direct and indirect effects of the European diet on the chance of transition to democracy and find positive impact of improvement in diet on political change. My findings reveal that improvement in diet affects democratization, but not vice versa.

Publications:
Shcherbak, A.N. (2016). The Recipe for Democracy? The Spread of European Diet and Political Change. Working Papers by NRU Higher School of Economics. Series: Sociology, WP BRP 70/SOC/2016. 

Regional Governors in Russia: Resources, Strategies, and Electoral Outcomes (2017-)

Author and Executor of the Project: Tkacheva T.Y.

Nowadays, Russian political regime is widely considered as electoral or competitive authoritarianism, and the political structure with the top-down command principle called “power vertical” had been successfully established. At the same time, subnational regimes in Russia still give an illustration of different political development trajectories. This becomes intriguing in the given national institutional context. This research is supposed to reveal the factors which determine the heterogeneity in subnational political systems through the prism of regional executive power. In particular, I analyze the following three aspects of the governorship: the differences in Russia’s gubernatorial tenures’ longevity, the difference in strategies regarding pre-election resignation since 2012, and the role of governors in the difference of electoral loyalty between republics and non-republics.

Publications:
Golosov, G.V., & Tkacheva, T. (2017). Let My People Run: Pre-Election Resignations of Russia's Governors, 2013-2015. Problems of Post-Communism, 1-10. DOI: 10.1080/10758216.2017.1351305.

Factors of Legal Diversity in Russian Regions (2017-)

Project Manager: Kononenko P.B.
Project Executors: Kononenko P.B., Tkacheva T.Y.

Russian federalism has become commonly considered to be entirely façade. A series of reforms aimed at re-centralization and then construction of the ‘power vertical’ had led to the situation ‘regions do not matter’. As a result, the structure of regional authorities is unified, regional party systems are identical to the federal one with a fixed role of the dominant party and with a, mostly, weak opposition; the electoral outcome is usually determined by the interest of the federal authorities. Even in the case of ‘emergency’ (that is, a low level of electoral support for the dominant party – United Russia – during the 2011 parliamentary elections), the reasons are usually federal-based. However, the opportunity to talk about political diversity in Russia still remains. On a monthly basis, regional parliaments send their bills to the Ministry of Justice for the review within the “ensuring of the legal unity” process. This activity is aimed at bringing the subnational laws in line with the federal legislation. The fact is that regional legislatures, with their political and institutional features directly dictated by the ‘power vertical’ system, demonstrate the different intensity of legislative activity. Moreover, in accordance with the review results, the number of incongruous acts also highly varies from one region to another. The given research is aimed at explaining this heterogeneity which is unexpected within the existing political and institutional homogeneity.

 

Research field «Cross-Cultural Data Collection and Analysis» ↑↑↑

Complex Methodological Approach to the Study of Media Effects on Public Opinion (2017)

Project Manager: Mavletova A.M.
Project Executors: Kazun A.D., Savin N.Y., Kashirskikh O.N.

The study of media effects on public opinion has quite a long history in the social sciences. In this project we will explore media effects on public opinion and will take into consideration both traditional and social media. We will run a number of experimental studies to explore the strength of media effects in authoritarian regimes, measure the effect of media frames on the attitudes and stability of attitudes under different media frames. In addition, we aim to study the factors that have an effect on selective exposure, measure the effect of consuming liberal media on attitudes and explore the role of social capital in the formation of deliberative discourse.

Why Don’t Economists Use Multilevel Modeling? (2017-)

Author and Executor of the Project: Shirokanova A.A., Oshchepkov A.Y.

In the last 20 years, multilevel modeling (MLM, Bryk & Raudenbush, 1992) has widely spread as a method of data analysis in the social sciences, notably in education studies, sociology, psychology, and management. However, economic research using MLM has been rather scarce. Besides, popular textbooks in econometrics, aimed at the students of economics, have mostly ignored MLM. In this paper we seek to explain this situation. We propose and critically investigate two main hypotheses. First, since MLM as a method originated not in economics, economists might have been taking their time to integrate it. This could partly be due to the fact that the research questions MLM is usually used for are of minor interest to economists. Second, from their perspective, economists might be seeing substantial flaws in MLM. Our general preliminary conclusion is that both explanations are relevant. Above and beyond the extant mismatch in the research questions, even in similar cases where sociologists or social psychologists would be using MLM by default, economists would prefer not to do it. In our view, the main feature of MLM that scares off economists is the underlying assumption that unobserved heterogeneity is random (the random effects model), while in economics the ‘gold standard’ has been the fixed effects model. We emphasize, however, that in light of the ongoing discussion on comparative advantages and disadvantages of these types of models, this MLM feature should not be treated as a crucial issue. Given the higher flexibility of MLM as compared with the OLS regression in the analysis of various social effects, we think that MLM has been unduly neglected in economics.

 

Other Research Fields ↑↑↑

Dynamics of Digital Inequality in Russia (2016-)

Author and Executor of the Project: Volchenko O.V.

The aim of current project is to cover the gap in studies of digital divide in Russia. Digital divide is a complex phenomenon describing unequal opportunities in access to Internet resources that cannot be explained only by economic affordability of the Internet or only by user’s personal choice. That is why current article considering a variety of socio-demographic factors affecting usage of the Internet. Empirical section of the research is based on repeated cross-sectional data from «Courier» database and dedicated to testing how digital divide is changing during the period of study (July 2011 — November 2013). Binary logistic regression is used as a method of analysis. The modeling shown that classic factors of digital inequality such as age, income, education, type of residence are related with probability of internet use in general as well as probability of usage of the Internet as a source of information. It occurred that gender does not affect probability of usage of the Internet, though it is related with usage of the Internet as a source of information (it is more probable to use internet as informational source for males). In dynamic perspective digital divide in use is decreasing, however digital divide in aims of use is increasing.

Publications:
Волченко О.В. Измерение практик использования Интернета в социальных науках: обзор основных методов // Информационное общество. 2017. № 1. С. 47-54.

The Global Economic Crisis and HIV Epidemic: Were Early Fears Justified? (2017-)

Author and Executor of the Project: Savchenko P.A., Makeeva A.A.

In this project we study a link between the economic crisis and spread of HIV. Though many studies are devoted to the relationship between the economy in general and HIV, little attention has been paid to the influence of the most recent economic downturn on HIV spread. We perform a country-level analysis using dat from UNAIDS and World Bank. We expect that rising inequality, decreasing GDP per capita, and unemployment growth all lead to the rise in new cases of HIV.

Publications:
Выступление на XVIII Апрельской международной научной конференции по проблемам развития экономики и общества (апрель 2017), доклад «The Global Economic Crisis and HIV Epidemic: Were Early Fears Justified?» (на англ. языке).

Urban Growth in Late-Imperial Russia: Beyond Traditional Explanations (2017-)

Author and Executor of the Project: Savchenko P.A.

Even though in relative numbers pre-revolutionary Russia lagged behind the most developed European nations in terms of urban population, urbanization there should not be considred a negligible phenomenon. Russia had its own mega-cities. Large cities in general (over 200'000 people) were almost as common as in Great Britain or Germany. What fostered the urban growth? Russian historians tend to assume that urbanization in Russian Empire was primarily driven by industrial growth and the spread of the railroad network. However, this hypothesis seems to be confirmed just partly. According to some studies, service sector turns out to be much more important. So, if the whole story is not about industry only, what are other factors behind this process? In this study I analyze regional-level data from the years 1897-1914 in order to understand urban growth patterns.

 

Completed Collective Research Projects

Genetic Factors and Preferences for Redistribution and Collective Behavior (2012-2014)

Gender Attitudes and Perception of Democracy in the Arab World (2012-2013)

Sexual Liberalization in Central Asia: a Marker of Modernization or a Choice of the Poorest? (2013-2014)

Exogenous shock, genetic diversity and social change: The Case of Alcohol and European Colonization (2012-2013)

Sociocultural and Institutional Aspects of Social Modernization of the Siberian Regions (2013-2014)

Social Welfare and Health of Unconventionally Employed (2011-2012)

Nationalism in Russian Society: An Experimental Study (2011-2013)

Nationalism in Russian Regions: A Comparative and Historical Perspectives (2011-2013)

Elite-2020 (2012-2013)

Social structure and social institutions of the central and frontier zones of the Russian Federation: quality of life and potential for modernization (2013-2014)

Participants: Anna Nemirovskaya, Roberto Foa, Tatiana Karabchuk, Vladimir Kozlov, Julia Savinkova

Wages and informal payments in police: comparative study of Russia, Bulgaria, Kazakhstan and Latvia (2013-2014)

Modernization and Well-Being in Russia (2010-2012)

Islam and Nationalism in Volga-Ural Region (2011-2012)

International Scientific Laboratories in Russia (2012-2013)

Internal Empires: Social and Political Cultures of the Frontier  (2011-2012) 

 

Completed Individual Research Projects supervised by Ronald Inglehart

• Clinical Conditions and Perceived Well-Being of the Patients Suffering from Chronic Diseases: An Application to Multiple Sclerosis, Alexey Belyanin (2012-2013);
• Regional Variation in Everyday Bribery in Russia: A Multilevel Study, Alexey Bessudnov (2011-2013);
• Family behaviour and social change in Eastern and Central Europe 1991-2008, Evgenia Bystrov (2012-2013);
• Do Nations Need Time? Nationalism between Invention of Tradition and Daily Plebiscite, Margarita Fabrykant (2012-2013);
• Social Determinants of Innovative Consumption Practices: Computer and Internet Utilization in Russian Households, Natalia Firsova (2012-2013);
• The Determinants of European Countries Citizens' Engagement in Protest Behavior, Marina Goroshit (2012-2013);
• Separating the bright from the dark side – Forms of civic engagement and corruption, Nicholas Griesshaber (2012-2013);
• Multidimensionality of Welfare Attitudes in Different Types of Welfare States, Olga Gryaznova (2013-2014);
• The effect of Perceived Consequences of Welfare State on Its Legitimacy, Olga Gryaznova (2013-2014);
• Globalization and Support for the Welfare State: Do Institutions and Identity Matter?, Alexander Kustov (2012-2013);
• Attitudes of the refugees and towards them: evidence from Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan, Yegor Lazarev (2012-2013);
• Anomie and Anomia: a Possible Approach towards the Measurement of Social Well-Being and Deviance, Ekaterina Lytkina (2012-2013);
• Cross-Country and Cross-Regional Socio-Cultural Attributes, Anna Nemirovskaya (2013-2014);
• The economic and cultural aspects of integration of labor immigrants: economic approach, Evgenia Poliakova (2012-2013)
• Religiosity and tolerance of behavior that is disapproved by religions: the effect of primary religious socialization (based on European Values Study), Elena Prutskova (2012-2013); 
• Value Consensus and Socioeconomic Development, Maxim Rudnev (2012-2013);
• What was all that Growth for? Explaining Chinese and Indian Decreasing Well-being in Times of Economic Growth, Francesco Sarracino (2012-2013);
• Intergenerational solidarity and value orientations under different welfare and modernization conditions, Irina Siegel (2012-2013);
• Gender Attitudes in the World of Work: Cross-Cultural Comparison, Natalia Soboleva (2012-2013);
• Value Change and Nationalist Attitudes in the Western Europe, Boris Sokolov ( 2012-2013);
• Urban Loneliness? Investigating its Roots and Consequences through European Social Survey Data, Cristopher Swader (2012-2013);
• The Rich are happier than thou: Reevaluating the Easterlin Paradox, Serban Tanasa (2012-2013);
• Self-control Index as a Predictor of Educational Achievement on Country Level, Evgeniy Varshaver (2012-2013);
• Genetic factors and preferences for redistribution and collective behavior, Aleksey Zakharov (2012-2013);
• Election, Referendums across Democracies and Autocracies: the role of secular-rational and emancipative values, Margarita Zavadskaya (2012-2013);
• Is It Really Economy? A Research on Socio-Economic Drivers of Anti-Americanism, Kirill Zhirkov (2012-2013);
• Between Religion and Politics: Sources of Anti-Americanism within Muslim Societies, Kirill Zhirkov (2012-2013);
• Islamism and Fundamentalism: The Relationship between Political and Cultural Cleavages in the Middle East, Kirill Zhirkov (2012-2013);
• Commitment to Nationalism: Predictors of Popular Political Euroscepticism about Common Immigration Policy in the EU, Aleksey Domanov;
• Inclusion in an International Professional Association, Joshua Dubrow;
• Individual Activism as a Way to Personal Achievement and Subjective Well-Being, Dmytro Khutkyy;
• Democracy in the Arab World, Pavel Kuzmichev;
• Comparative Perspective of Civik Engagement in Europe, Alla Marchenko;
• A Cross-National Evaluation of the Sources of Anti-Trafficking Enforcement, Maria Ravlik;
• The Internet, Social Capital, Subjective Well-Being and Health, Fabio Sabatini;
• The Creative Class and Subjective Well-Being: Multilevel Analysis, Irina Vartanova;
• Welfare Policy, Successful Aging and Social Justice, Julia Zelikova
• Human Empowerment and Paradoxes of Trust: a Multi-level Analysis, Anna Almakaeva (2011-2012);

• Subjective Well-Being and Human Agency: Transition Countries Compared to the ‘Non Transition’ Countries, Svitlana Khutka (2011-2012);
• Traditional Family Behavior from the Human Empowerment Perspective, Evgenia Bystrov (2011-2012); 
• Nationalism, Modernism and Modernization of Values: Empirical Evidence from 85 Countries, Margarita Fabrykant (2011-2012);
• What makes people feel free: Subjective Freedom in Comparative Perspective, Natalia Firsova (2011-2012);
• Factors Affecting Welfare Attitudes in Europe: Existential Security and Values, Olga Gryaznova (2011-2012);
• Career-Fertility Combinations among Women and their Effect on Life Satisfaction Differences in Open and Closed Labour Markets, Tatiana Karabchuk (2011-2012);
• Values of Migrants and Local Population in Europe: A Comparative Study, Veronika Kostenko (2011-2012);
• Subjective Well-Being in the Late Working and Third Age Life Period: the Role of Social-Demographic Factor, Age and Cohorts, Vladimir Kozlov (2011-2012);
• Corruption and social values: Do post-materialists justify bribe-taking?, Marina Kravtsova (with Alexey Oshchepkov) (2012-2013);
• Social Tolerance under Harsh Conditions, Anna Nemirovskaya (2011-2012);
• Public perceptions of human rights practices: A values-based approach using a multi-level method of estimation, Kristina Puzarina (2011-2012);
• Xenophobia in the Lab, Nadezhda Shilova (2011-2012);
• Individualization and Social Solidarities in Post-Communist Europe: Do Old Divisions Persist?, Anna Shirokanova (2011-2012);
• Modernization and the Formalization of Normative Regulation, Christopher Swader and Leon Kosals
• The Dynamics of Cosmopolitanism in the World, Alexander Kustov;
• Land, Votes, and Violence: Political Effects of the Insecure Property Rights over Land in Dagestan, Yegor Lazarev;
• The Impact of Inequality on Support for Democracy, Yegor Lazarev (2011-2012);
• Religious incongruence: The case of religiosity impact on tolerance of behavior that is disapproved by religions, Elena Prutskova;
• Factors of International Migration: Contemporary Trends, Maria Ravlik
• Common Value Dimensions Standing Behind Schwartz’s and Inglehart’s Values at the Country and Individual Levels, Maxim Rudnev;
• Does Culture Matter? The Impact of Tolerance on Economic Modernization in a Comparative Perspective, Andrey Shcherbak;
• Values as a Predictor of Educational Performance Gap between Natives and Migrants in 14 Countries, Evgeniy Varshaver;
• Changes in European voting patterns: is the new left-right dimension becoming more important, and why, Alexey Zakharov;
• When Do Elections Support Autocracy? The Incumbent Strategies, Political Competition and Authoritarian Regime Survival, Margarita Zavadskaya;
• Successful Aging: Subjective Well-being in Late Life Period, Julia Zelikova (2011-2012);
• Anti-Capitalism in Post-Soviet Countries, Julia Zelikova (2011-2012);
• Islam Militarism as Ideology and its support by International Muslim Community, Kirill Zhirkov (2011-2012);
• Cultural and Political Anti-Americanism and Their Relationships to Modernization: A Country-Level Analysis, Kirill Zhirkov (2011-2012)