IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/bjposi/v24y1994i02p183-223_00.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Political Values in Russia, Ukraine and Lithuania: Sources and Implications for Democracy

Author

Listed:
  • Reisinger, William M.
  • Miller, Arthur H.
  • Hesli, Vicki L.
  • Maher, Kristen Hill

Abstract

Employing data from three surveys of mass opinion conducted in Lithuania, Ukraine and European Russia during 1990, 1991 and 1992, we examine three prominent but competing hypotheses about the source of political values in the post-Soviet societies: historically derived political culture, regime indoctrination and the effects of societal modernization. The literature on Soviet political culture argues that Russian mass values are distinguished by authoritarianism and love of order, values which will be largely shared by Ukrainians, especially East Ukrainians, whereas Lithuanian society would not evince this pattern. Our data do not support this hypothesis. We then examine acceptance of Soviet era norms, both political and economic. We do not find support for the argument that regime indoctrination during the Soviet period produced a set of ideologically derived values throughout the former Soviet Union and across a series of generations. The third hypothesis – that industrialization, urbanization, war and changing educational opportunities shaped the formative experiences of succeeding generations in the Soviet societies and, therefore, their citizens' values – receives the most support: in each of the three societies, differences in political values across age groups, places of residence and levels of education are noteworthy. The variations in political values we find across demographic groupings help us to understand the level of pro-democratic values in each society. We find that in Russia and Ukraine more support for democracy can be found among urban, better educated respondents than among other groups. In Lithuania, the urban and better educated respondents evince pro-democratic values at about the same level as their counterparts in Russia and Ukraine, but Lithuanian farmers and blue-collar workers support democracy at a level closer to urban, white-collar Lithuanians than to their Russian and Ukrainian counterparts. In all three societies, those citizens most likely to hold values supportive of democracy are those who are less favourable to Soviet-era values and less convinced of the primacy of the need for social and political ‘order’. Those who desire strong leadership, however, tend to have more democratic values, not more authoritarian ones.

Suggested Citation

  • Reisinger, William M. & Miller, Arthur H. & Hesli, Vicki L. & Maher, Kristen Hill, 1994. "Political Values in Russia, Ukraine and Lithuania: Sources and Implications for Democracy," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 24(2), pages 183-223, April.
  • Handle: RePEc:cup:bjposi:v:24:y:1994:i:02:p:183-223_00
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0007123400009789/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. John S. Earle & Scott Gehlbach, 2003. "A Spoonful of Sugar: Privatization and Popular Support for Reform in the Czech Republic," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 15(1), pages 1-32, March.
    2. Tamilina, Larysa, 2024. "A Psycho-Historical Analysis of Nations: The Example of Ukraine and Russia," MPRA Paper 119727, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Narisong Huhe, 2014. "Understanding the Multilevel Foundation of Social Trust in Rural China: Evidence from the China General Social Survey," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 95(2), pages 581-597, June.
    4. Evans, Geoffrey & Rose, Pauline, 2007. "Support for Democracy in Malawi: Does Schooling Matter?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 35(5), pages 904-919, May.
    5. Nachane, Dilip M., 2010. "Liberalization, globalization and the dynamics of democracy in India," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 38356, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    6. Tamilina, Larysa, 2022. "Political factors as possible determinants behind the sense of identificationwith the nation, state, or society: hte case of Ukraine and Russia," MPRA Paper 115406, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:bjposi:v:24:y:1994:i:02:p:183-223_00. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/jps .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.