RAPID: Russia Panel Survey 2015

这项研究重新采访了具有全国代表性的俄罗斯公民样本，他们于2012年春季首次接受了关于他们的政治、经济和社会观点的调查，以了解俄罗斯舆论的一个非常重要的转变。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亚努科维奇。不久之后，俄罗斯吞并了乌克兰的克里米亚半岛，震惊了国际社会，并开始支持一场猛烈的叛乱，叛乱很快控制了乌克兰工业地区顿巴斯的大部分地区。俄罗斯公众集会支持弗拉基米尔·普京总统，他的支持率飙升，并一直居高不下。这项研究将为我们解开三大谜题提供新的线索：(1)我们在俄罗斯观察到的大规模“团结在领导人周围”效应的背后究竟是什么？(2)为什么克里米亚被吞并后的经济危机没有显著降低这种团结效应？(3)为什么俄罗斯支持的乌克兰叛乱正在进行中，战场上的代价没有导致普京民众支持率的下降？这一结果将帮助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，美国与俄罗斯经常发生误解，而且俄罗斯是少数几个能够在全球范围内投射重大力量的国家之一。特别是，它将帮助我们更好地了解俄罗斯公众舆论可能在国际舞台上约束或鼓励不同类型的行为的方式。每一个谜题都反映了这项研究将解决的社会科学的重要问题。有机会重新采访2012年首次接受采访的同一批公民，我们将能够探索哪些人最有可能加入凝聚效应，哪些人不会。虽然在许多参与国际冲突的国家中观察到了团结效应，但很少有其他研究能够在前后采访相同的人。这将有助于更准确地理解是什么促成了这种凝聚效应。尽管经济危机，这种凝聚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)之前的重要研究经常发现，总统的受欢迎程度与经济表现密切相关，这让我们特别感兴趣的是，为什么至少在克里米亚危机爆发以来的一年里，这种模式在俄罗斯未能保持下去，尽管它以前一直很强劲。自危机开始以来，战场成本并未影响总统的支持率，这一事实将有助于更好地理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.