RAPID: Russia Panel Survey 2015

本研究重新采访了2012年春季首次调查的具有全国代表性的俄罗斯公民样本，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一个非常重要的转变。2014年2月，亲欧盟的抗议者将俄罗斯支持的乌克兰总统亚努科维奇赶下台后不久，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，这场叛乱很快控制了乌克兰顿巴斯工业区的大部分地区，震惊了国际社会。俄罗斯公众团结起来支持总统普京，他的支持率一路飙升，并一直保持在高位。这项研究将为三个主要难题提供新的线索：(1)我们在俄罗斯观察到的大规模“团结在领导人周围”效应究竟是什么？(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显著减弱？(3)为什么俄罗斯支持的乌克兰持续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理解俄罗斯的国际行为。美国与俄罗斯之间经常存在误解，俄罗斯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理解俄罗斯公众舆论在国际舞台上约束或鼓励不同行为的方式。这些难题都反映了本研究将解决的社会科学的重要问题。有机会重新采访2012年首次采访的那些公民，将使我们能够探索哪些类别的人最有可能加入团结效应，哪些人没有。虽然在许多发生国际冲突的国家都观察到团结效应，但很少有其他研究能够在冲突前后采访同一个人。这将有助于更准确地理解是什么促成了这种集结效应。在经济危机中，这种团结效应的持久性将使我们更好地理解人们为了民族自豪感或其他价值而愿意牺牲经济利益的条件。许多国家（不仅仅是俄罗斯）之前的著名研究经常发现，总统的受欢迎程度与经济表现密切相关，这使得调查为什么这种模式在克里米亚危机开始以来的至少一年中没有在俄罗斯保持下去，尽管之前这种模式一直很强劲，这一点特别有趣。自危机开始以来，战场成本并没有影响总统的受欢迎程度，这一事实将有助于更好地了解人们是如何理解自己国家参与冲突的，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.