SBE-RCUK Lead Agency: The Geopolitical Orientations of Russia's Neighboring State Populations

该研究项目将详细描述欧洲，高加索和中亚后苏联地区各国人口的地缘政治取向。研究人员将系统地解释这些取向的原因，包括亲俄和反俄以及西方的观点，他们将考虑这些取向在重大国内政治变化、地区经济差异、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力量之间的暴力对抗在欧亚地区可能持续或蔓延的背景下的一致性。该项目将有助于了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，以及动态地缘政治竞争和该地区的变化。与标准的国际关系方法相比，这些方法往往侧重于国家内部的精英政治和大国对这些国家和有争议的分离主义地区的地缘政治竞争，该项目将侧重于提高对这些政治的普通居民的态度和信仰的了解。对沿着俄罗斯边境国家居民地缘政治取向的进一步了解将为英国、美国和其他国家的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在两极分化、怀疑、危机和不确定性的时期，提高对该地区外交政策选择的实地熟悉度和国内考虑。事实上，学者、政策制定者和公众对俄罗斯运用“软实力”--通过说服和吸引而非军事或经济压力来扩大影响力--的兴趣越来越大。然而，前苏联非俄罗斯部分的居民对这些努力的反应尚未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引发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与其西方竞争对手之间的影响力竞争，以建立和维持影响力范围。该项目将侧重于普通人的政治态度和认同，而不是国家精英。合作进行这一项目的调查人员是来自美国和联合王国的政治地理学家和政治科学家，他们是苏联解体后事务的专家。他们将同时对七个独立国家、四个分离主义地区的现有事实上的共和国以及乌克兰境内的两个有争议的领土进行一系列民意调查。调查人员将审查前苏联各地的媒体产出，并将对13，200名受访者进行两波大型民意调查，以衡量和了解地缘政治态度和取向。他们将采用一种混合方法，将所有研究地点的文化和新闻广播检查与两波调查小组的数据定量分析相结合。

This research project will produce a detailed portrait of the geopolitical orientations of the populations in the 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 consider 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 polities with respect to both domestic and foreign politics. 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 United Kingdom, the United States, and and other nations. Project findings will help increase on-the-ground familiarity and domestic considerations of foreign-policy choices in regions at a time of polarization, suspicion, crisis, and uncertainty. Indeed, scholars, policy makers, and the public have increased their interest in Russia's exercise of "soft power," the expansion of its influence through persuasion and attraction rather than military or economic pressure. Yet the reaction to these efforts by the populations in non-Russian parts of the former Soviet Union has not been comprehensively or intensively measured, however. This project will examine how the geopolitical crisis that began with Russia's 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 competition for influence between Russian and its Western competitors for building and maintaining a sphere of influence. 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 seven independent states, four existing de facto republics in separatist regions, and two contested territories within Ukraine. The investigators will examine the media output across the former Soviet Union and will conduct two waves of a large public opinion survey of 13,200 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.