Re‐evaluating mass support for political and economic change in Russia

Abstract

SINCE 1991 WESTERN SOCIAL SCIENTISTS have been struggling to understand the causes of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the likely course of future developments in the post-communist era. They were ill-prepared for the task, both analytically and empirically. Most theories about the dynamics of Soviet society had to be abandoned in the light of sudden and unforeseen events, notably the advent of a multiparty system and the privatisation of much of the economy. Moreover, few data sets were available for testing new theories because the first reliable nationwide surveys were conducted only at the very end of the 1980s. The first Western social scientists to raise important questions about the course of reform and test their ideas using nationwide survey data were Finifter & Mickiewicz (1992), who conducted a 1989 poll of the citizens of seven Soviet republics, including Russia and Ukraine (weighted n = 2006). Miller, Hesli & Reisinger (1994) retested Finifter & Mickiewicz's arguments in 1991 and 1992, this time sampling citizens of Russia, Ukraine and Lithuania (n = 2700). Although the two research groups reached similar conclusions on some points, the discrepancies between the two sets of findings are most noteworthy because of their profoundly different implications for one's understanding of post-Soviet politics. They disagreed over the probable course of future political development and over which categories of the population favoured various political outcomes. In this article I first summarise and assess the findings of both research teams. I then retest some of their arguments using data collected from a March-April 1995 survey of 2000 Russian adults. Comparing models of mass support for political and economic reform at three-year intervals (1989, 1992 and 1995) allows me to conclude that neither research team provides an adequate interpretation of likely political developments. Moreover, I find weaknesses in both research teams' analyses of the social bases of support for, and opposition to, economic and political reform. I therefore provide an alternative interpretation of likely political developments and their social bases. I conclude by considering the larger theoretical implications of my analysis for theories of political culture and social structure as they have been applied to Russia.