RAPID: Russia Panel Survey 2015

本研究重新采访了2012年春季首次接受调查的俄罗斯公民的全国代表性样本，了解他们的政治，经济和社会观点，以了解俄罗斯公众舆论的重要转变。2014年2月，亲欧盟的抗议者推翻了俄罗斯支持的乌克兰总统维克托·亚努科维奇（Viktor Yanukovych）后不久，俄罗斯吞并了乌克兰的克里米亚半岛，并开始支持一场激烈的叛乱，很快就控制了乌克兰工业区顿巴斯（Donbas）的大部分地区，此举震惊了国际社会。俄罗斯公众团结起来支持总统弗拉基米尔普京，他的支持率飙升，并一直保持在高位。这项研究将揭示三个主要的问题：（1）究竟是什么基础上的大规模“团结在领导人周围”的效果，我们观察到在俄罗斯？(2)为什么克里米亚被吞并后的经济危机没有导致这种团结效应的显著减弱？(3)为什么俄罗斯支持的乌克兰叛乱的战场成本没有导致普京的民众支持率下降？调查结果将有助于政策制定者和更广泛的公众更好地了解俄罗斯的国际行为，俄罗斯是美国经常误解的国家，也是少数几个能够在全球范围内投射重要力量的国家之一。特别是，它将帮助我们更好地了解俄罗斯的公众舆论可能会在国际竞技场上限制或鼓励不同类型的行为的方式。有机会重新采访2012年首次采访的同一批公民，将使我们能够探索哪些类别的人最有可能加入一个集会效应，哪些不是。虽然在许多参与国际冲突的国家都观察到了集结效应，但很少有其他研究能够在冲突前后采访同一批人。这将有助于更准确地理解是什么促成了这种聚集效应。尽管发生了经济危机，但这种凝聚力效应的持久性将使我们能够更好地理解人们愿意为了民族自豪感或其他价值而牺牲经济利益的条件。许多国家（不仅仅是俄罗斯）的著名研究经常发现，总统的受欢迎程度与经济表现紧密相关，这使得研究为什么这种模式在克里米亚危机开始以来的至少一年内未能在俄罗斯保持特别有趣，尽管它之前一直保持强劲。自危机开始以来，战场成本并没有削弱总统的受欢迎程度，这一事实将有助于更好地了解人们如何理解他们的国家参与冲突，包括国家控制的媒体或互联网等大众媒体可能产生的重要影响。

This study reinterviews a nationally representative sample of Russian citizens who were first surveyed in spring 2012 about their political, economic, and social views in order to understand a very important transformation in Russian public opinion. Shortly after pro-European Union protesters ousted Russian-backed Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014, Russia stunned the international community by annexing Ukraine's Crimean peninsula and began backing a fierce insurgency that soon gained control over significant parts of Ukraine's industrial Donbas region. The Russian public rallied to support President Vladimir Putin, whose approval ratings skyrocketed and have remained high. This study will shed new light on three major puzzles: (1) What exactly underlies the massive "rally-around-the-leader" effect that we observe in Russia? (2) Why has the economic crisis that followed Crimea's annexation not led to a significant reduction in this rallying effect? (3) Why have the battlefield costs of the ongoing Russian-backed insurgency in Ukraine not led to a decline in Putin's popular support? The results will help policymakers and a broader public better understand the international behavior of Russia, a country with which the US has had frequent misunderstandings and one of only a few countries able to project significant power worldwide. In particular, it will help us better understand the ways in which Russia's public opinion might constrain or encourage different kinds of behavior in the international arena.Each of these puzzles reflects important questions for social science that this study will address. The opportunity to reinterview the very same citizens first interviewed in 2012 will enable us to explore which categories of people are the most likely to join a rallying effect and which are not. While rallying effects have been observed in many countries that engage in international conflict, very few other studies have been able to interview the same people both before and after. This will facilitate understanding more precisely what facilitates such rallying effects. The durability of this rallying effect despite economic crisis will enable us to better understand conditions under which people are willing to sacrifice economic gain for national pride or some other value. Prominent prior studies in many countries (not just Russia) have often found that presidential popularity tracks tightly with economic performance, making it particularly interesting to investigate why this pattern has failed to hold in Russia during at least the year since the Crimea crisis began even though it had held strongly before. The fact that battlefield costs have not dented presidential popularity since the start of the crisis will facilitate a better understanding of how people understand their country's participation in conflict, including what might be important effects from mass media such as state-controlled media or the Internet.