SBE-RCUK: The Geopolitical Orientations of People in Borderland States

该研究项目将详细描述欧洲、高加索和中亚后苏联地区9个国家人口的地缘政治取向。调查人员将系统地解释这些倾向的原因，包括亲俄、反俄和西方的观点，他们将在重大的国内政治变化、区域经济差异、大规模人口流动和地缘政治变化，以及俄罗斯和西方支持的势力在欧亚地区可能继续或蔓延的暴力对抗的背景下，评估这些倾向的一致性。该项目将有助于理解前苏联继承国的政治动态，因为他们谈判帝国遗产，经济相互依存，以及该地区动态的地缘政治竞争和变化。标准的国际关系方法倾向于关注国家内部的精英政治和大国在这些国家和有争议的分离主义地区的地缘政治竞争，与之相反，该项目将侧重于提高对这些国家普通居民的态度和信仰的了解。对俄罗斯边境国家居民地缘政治取向的进一步了解将为美国和其他国家外交政策的发展和实施提供有价值的新见解。项目研究结果将有助于增加对当前两极分化、猜疑、危机和不确定时期地区外交政策选择的国内背景的实地了解。学者、政策制定者和公众对俄罗斯运用“软实力”（通过说服和吸引力而不是军事或经济压力来扩大其影响力）和其他形式的权力越来越感兴趣。但是，前苏联非俄罗斯地区的居民对这些努力的反应还没有得到全面或深入的衡量。该项目将研究俄罗斯吞并克里米亚开始的地缘政治危机如何重塑了与俄罗斯接壤的前苏联国家和有争议领土的不同人口的地缘政治前景。对该地区未来至关重要的是俄罗斯、西方和其他国家对国内人口的相对吸引力。该项目将关注普通民众的政治态度和认同，而不是国家精英。参与该项目的调查人员是来自美国和英国的政治地理学家和政治科学家，他们是后苏联时期事务方面的专家。他们将同时对9个独立国家、4个分裂地区的事实上的共和国和乌克兰境内两个有争议的地区进行民意调查。调查人员将检查前苏联的精选媒体产出，并将对15,000名受访者进行两波大规模民意调查，以衡量和了解地缘政治态度和方向。他们将采用一种混合方法，结合对所有研究地点的文化和新闻广播的检查，以及对来自两波调查小组的数据进行定量分析。该奖项是在英国国家科学基金会社会、行为和经济科学研究委员会（SBE-RCUK）牵头机构协议的支持下颁发的。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This research project will produce a detailed portrait of the geopolitical orientations of the populations in nine countries across the post-Soviet regions of Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. The investigators will systematically explain the reasons for such orientations, including pro and anti-Russian and Western opinions, and they will assess the consistency of these orientations in the context of significant domestic political changes, regional economic disparities, sizable population movements and geopolitical shifts, and possible continuation or spreading of violent confrontations between Russian and Western-backed forces across the Eurasian region. The project will contribute to understanding the political dynamics of successor states of the former Soviet Union as they negotiate imperial legacies, economic interdependence, and dynamic geopolitical competition and change in the region. In contrast with standard international relations approaches, which tend to focus on elite politics within states and large state geopolitical competition over these states and contested separatist region, the project will focus on enhancing knowledge about the attitudes and beliefs of ordinary residents of these states. The increased understanding of the geopolitical orientations of residents along Russia's borderland states will provide valuable new insights to inform the development and conduct of foreign policy in the U.S. and other states. Project findings will help increase on-the-ground knowledge of domestic contexts of foreign-policy choices in regions at a time of polarization, suspicion, crisis, and uncertainty.Scholars, policy makers, and the public have increased interest in Russia's exercise of "soft power" (the expansion of its influence through persuasion and attraction rather than military or economic pressure) and other forms of power. The reaction to these efforts by the populations in non-Russian regions of the former Soviet Union has not been comprehensively or intensively measured, however. This project will examine how the geopolitical crisis that began with the Russian annexation of Crimea has reshaped the geopolitical outlook of the different populations in countries and disputed territories of the former Soviet Union that border Russia. Critical to the future of the region is the relative attractiveness of Russian, the West, and other states to domestic populations. The project will focus on the political attitudes and identifications of ordinary people, not state elites. The investigators who are collaborating in the conduct of this project are political geographers and political scientists from the United States and the United Kingdom who are experts in post-Soviet affairs. They will conduct a simultaneous set of public opinion surveys of nine independent states, four existing de facto republics in separatist regions, and two contested territories within Ukraine. The investigators will examine select media outputs across the former Soviet Union and will conduct two waves of a large public opinion survey of 15,000 respondents to gauge and understand geopolitical attitudes and orientations. They will employ a mixed-methods approach that combines the examination of cultural and news broadcasts in all the study sites and quantitative analysis of data from a two-wave survey panel. This award is made under the auspices of the NSF Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences-Research Councils of the United Kingdom (SBE-RCUK) Lead Agency Agreement.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.