Consolidating Democracy?: A Panel Study of Changes in the Political Culture of Russia

最近俄罗斯政治的一个特点是变化。 从一个相对极权主义的政权，俄罗斯已经成为一个新生的民主国家。 这种民主能否得到巩固，是当代社会科学面临的最重要的理论和实践问题之一。 前苏联的变革为检验民主化的理论命题提供了宝贵的机会。 在本研究中，变化提供了研究普通人如何发展（或未能发展）对基本民主制度和程序的依恋的机会。 普通俄罗斯人是否（以及如何）致力于民主制度，对于巩固该国的民主至关重要。 由于这一问题和研究地点的重要性，基金会于1996年支助了对俄罗斯大众的一次重大调查。 调查的目的是评估和比较对民主机构和进程的支持程度（包括政治宽容），以测试微观层面的补充理论之间的关系，制度和文化变革，探索的影响，上下文因素的判断有关的权利和自由的实施在俄罗斯，并进行了几个实验中的调查，范围从方法论（例如，默认）到高度实质性（例如，说服力实验）。 调查非常成功，目前正在进行分析。 虽然这一调查和其他调查对评估俄罗斯政治文化的宏观变化是有用的，但它们在解决公民个人层面变化的能力方面相当有限。 因此，本次调查对这些答复者又进行了两波调查，从而形成了一个涵盖1996-1998年的三波小组。 这些面板数据的目的是评估几个紧迫的理论和实证问题，包括：a）在何种程度上是短期的变化是可重复的说服性实验，在何种程度上这种变化会产生更持久的变化的态度，B）文化的变化流从制度变革？公民是否从其政治、社会和经济机构的表现中学习到新的思维和行为方式;大众偏好是否是内生的;政治和经济制度的相对影响是什么; c）支持大多数民主制度和进程，但拒绝容忍自己的政治敌人之间的逻辑矛盾的心理动力是什么。 将对这些问题和其他一些重要问题进行评估。 在评估个人层面的变化时，正在检验各种微观层面的理论（社会学习、社交网络和公民社会）。 此外，研究重点是政治宽容和民主信仰体系的其他组成部分之间的相互联系。 早期的研究表明，宽容与其他民主价值观几乎没有关系，这是俄罗斯特有的发现。 目前的项目以相当大的努力调查这种非关系，确定民主信仰体系的结晶是否导致承认政治容忍是一种至关重要的民主价值观。

One of the hallmarks of recent Russian politics is change. From a relatively totalitarian regime, Russia has emerged as a nascent democracy. Whether this democracy can be consolidated is one of the most important theoretical and practical questions facing contemporary social science. Change in the former Soviet Union provides invaluable opportunities for testing theoretical propositions about democratization. In this investigation, change provides the opportunity to study how ordinary people develop (or fail to develop) attachments to basic democratic institutions and processes. Whether (and how) ordinary Russians become committed to democratic institutions is an issue of crucial importance for the consolidation of democracy in that country. As a consequence of the importance of this issue and the research site, the Foundation supported a major survey of the Russian mass public in 1996. The purpose of that survey was to assess and compare the degree of support for democratic institutions and processes (including political tolerance), to test micro-level complements to theories of the relationship between institutional and cultural change, to explore the influence of contextual factors on judgments about the implementation of rights and liberties in Russia, and to conduct several experiments within the survey, ranging from the methodological (e.g., acquiescence) to the highly substantive (e.g., persuasibility experiments). The survey was highly successful, and analysis of it is currently under way. Although this an other surveys are useful for assessing macro-level change in Russian political culture, they are quite limited in their ability to address change at the level of the individual citizen. Consequently, the current investigation undertakes two additional waves of surveys of these respondents, thus creating a three-wave panel stretching over the period 1996-1998. These panel data are designed to assess several pressing theoretical and empirical questions, including: a) to what degree is the short-term change of the persuasibility experiments reproducible; to what degree does this change generate more enduring changes in attitudes; b) does cultural change flow from institutional change; do citizens learn new ways of thinking and acting from the performance of their political, social and economic institutions; are mass preferences endogenous; what is the relative influence of political and economic institutions; c) what are the psychodynamics of the logical inconsistency between supporting most democratic institutions and processes, but refusing to tolerate one's political enemies. These and a number of other important questions will be assessed. In assessing individual-level change, a variety of micro-level theories (social learning, social networks, and civil society) are being tested. In addition, the research focuses heavily on the interconnection between political tolerance and other components of the democratic belief system. Earlier research has shown that tolerance is little related to other democratic values, a finding peculiar to Russia. The current project investigates that non-relationship with considerable diligence, determining whether the crystallization of democratic belief systems results in the recognition of political tolerance as a crucial democratic value.