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The child-rearing scale (CRS) as a measure of authoritarianism holds promise for cross-cultural public opinion research but its validity beyond the Western and, in particular, American context has never been investigated. We address this gap by studying the scale’s validity in Russia, a particularly interesting case due to its long history as a left-wing authoritarian regime. We also combine data from mass and elite surveys conducted in 2020 to explore the structure and performance of the CRS across different subpopulations. Using these data, we replicate the overall structure of the scale and confirm its validity. However, we also show that some indicators perform differently across masses and elites. Our findings suggest that the CRS is a valid measure of authoritarianism outside the United States but also show that its external linkages can vary across specific groups, depending on the country under examination.

This paper investigates the impact of sociopolitical instability on fertility. We develop a model linking macro-level instability with its perceptions as uncertainty at micro-level and their impact on decision-making and fertility outcomes. This model is based on a modified version of the uncertainty reduction theory. We stipulate that higher fertility rates may reflect people’s effort to reduce uncertainty in the periods of higher instability. We test and partially confirm this model by application of an APC analysis to fertility data from the Soviet and post-Soviet Russia from 1959 through 1998. The model helps to explain some of the sudden short-term fluctuations in fertility during the period of research interest that other social and demographic theories failed to interpret. Our findings lead us to certain suggestions in the way of refinement of the uncertainty reduction theory. Furthermore, our model relates various types, intensities and magnitudes of instabilities to fertility outcomes.

Quality of life and one’s subjective evaluation of one’s own happiness and well-being are the conventional focus of psychology and sociology. However, a genetic factor has recently been found to affect the subjective evaluation of well-being. The contribution of heredity to a personal level of happiness and life satisfaction has been estimated at 30–50% in twin studies. Individual genes associated with these traits have been identified, but the available data are rather discrepant. In this work, alleles of the monoamine oxidase A gene (MAOA) were tested for association with well-being components, such as happiness, health, dangers of living environment, and stress, in Russian men. Trait assessments were based on questionnaires filled out as part of the World Values Survey. It is shown that, among the uVNTR-3R allele carriers, the proportion of men who have high levels of stress, feel unhappy, and live in unsafe environments is lower. The results are discussed in the context of the gene plasticity concept, which provides a possible explanation for how expression of genes related to behavior changes in different environmental conditions.

Can a society’s overall level of happiness change? Until recently, it was widely held that happiness fluctuates around set-points, so that neither individuals nor societies can lastingly increase their happiness. However, data from surveys carried out in Russia from 1982 to 2011 show that happiness fell substantially following the collapse of the Soviet Union, and has begun to rise again only recently. Additional data sources, including suicide rates and indices of negative affect expression, confirm these shifts. Contrary to set-point theory, we find that the recent increase has been driven as much by generational replacement as by mean reversion among individuals. The collapse of communism led to a permanent drop in subjective wellbeing among mid-life cohorts that was subsequently never fully recovered. Happiness can be substantially and permanently impacted by life-events, including those affecting society as a whole, and societal-level happiness can rise or fall over time as a result.

The authors seek to contribute to academic debates on migration studies by examining the role of Islam in the integration of Muslim migrants into a multicultural society with a long-standing Islamic component. This study examined some transformations in the religious practices of both Muslim labor migrants and Russian indigenous Muslims in the situation of large flow migration from Central Asia to Russia. The results demonstrate that these transformations take place in both directions by bringing some Central Asian practices into the life of Russian Muslims and vice versa. The authors also pay special attention to the formation of solidarity between and inside these two quasi-communities. They conclude that social solidarity on the basis of common religion is formed inside migrant communities despite ethnic differences rather than between autochthonous Muslims and migrants.

For three decades, scholars have focused on generalized interpersonal trust as the key component of social capital and there is a wide consensus that trust in strangers is the prime indicator of people’s general trust in others. However, little work with a specific focus on trust in strangers has been conducted in a comparative multilevel framework. The few existing studies are inconclusive because of deficiencies in both conceptualization and test strategy. Filling this gap, this article examines the determinants of trust in strangers on the broadest country base ever used in the study of trust, drawing on global cross-cultural evidence from the fifth and sixth rounds of the World Values Surveys—the first international surveys to include a direct question on trust in strangers. Reaching beyond conventional wisdom about the sources of generalized trust, we demonstrate that human empowerment at the country level is a powerful moderator of well-known individual-level determinants of trust. Specifically, in countries with lagging human empowerment, institutional trust, trust in known people, and material satisfaction are the only individual-level characteristics that enhance trust in strangers. We also detect an unexpected negative effect of education where human empowerment is lagging. In sharp contrast, in countries with advanced human empowerment, a much broader set of individual-level characteristics increases trust in strangers. This set includes ethnic tolerance, membership in voluntary associations, social movement activity, emancipative values, subjective well-being, age, and education. These insights inform a multilevel theory of trust, showing that human empowerment operates as a contextual activator of individual trust promoters.

This paper analyzes the relationship between support of democracy and attitudes to human rights: in particular, support for gender equality in the countries covered by the first wave of the Arab Barometer project. We used cluster analysis and negative binomial regression modeling to show that, unlike in most countries of the world, the correlation between support of democracy and gender equality is very low in Arab countries. There is a group of people in the region who support both democracy and gender equality, but they are a small group (about 17% of the population) of elderly and middle-aged people characterized by higher education and social status. A substantial number of poorly educated males express support for democracy, but not for gender equality. Many people (especially young males aged 25-35 in 2007) are against both gender equality and democracy. Younger people tend to be both better educated and more conservative -- those belonging to the 25-34 age group are the most patriarchal in their gender attitudes. Controlling for age, education still has a positive effect on gender equality attitudes. Nevertheless, this phenomenon probably means that there are two simultaneous processes going on in the Middle East. On the one hand, people are becoming more educated, urbanized etc., which means the continuation of modernization. On the other hand, we observed a certain retrogression of social values.

This article builds on research demonstrating that high levels of economic and physical security are conducive to a shift from materialist to postmaterialist values—and that this shift tends to make people more favorable to important social changes. This article updates this research, demonstrating that: (1) These value changes occur with exceptionally large time lags between the onset of the conditions conducive to them, and the societal changes they produce—as previous work implies but does not demonstrate. The evidence suggests that there was a time lag of forty to fifty years between when Western societies first attained high levels of economic and physical security after World War II, and related societal changes such as legalization of same-sex marriage. (2) A distinctive set of "individual-choice norms," dealing with acceptance of gender equality, divorce, abortion, and homosexuality, is moving on a different trajectory from other cultural changes. These norms are closely linked with human fertility rates and require severe self-repression. (3) Although basic values normally change at the pace of intergenerational population replacement, the shift from pro-fertility norms to individual-choice norms is now moving much faster, having reached a tipping point where conformist pressures have reversed polarity and are now accelerating changes they once resisted. We test these claims against data from eighty countries containing most of the world's population, surveyed from 1981 to 2014.

Tatarstan-an autonomous ethnic republic within the Russian Federation dominated by traditionally Muslim Tatars-was at the forefront of nationalist mobilization in the late 1980s and early 1990s. From 1990 to 1993, against a background of political rivalries in Moscow (first between Russian President Boris Yeltsin and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, then between Yeltsin and the parliament), the republic's leadership enjoyed virtual independence and consolidated its position vis-a-vis the federal government to win extraordinary concessions in a power-sharing treaty between the republic and Russia's central government. The republic's leadership insisted on being an equal partner with Moscow; retained a substantial share of federal taxes for the local budget; and enacted local laws that sometimes contradicted federal law.1 Tatar ethnicity and (especially) proficiency in the Tatar language were essential for advancing in many types of careers in the republic. Until recently, three-quarters of the Tatarstani legislature's (Gossovet) members were ethnic Tatars, even though Tatars barely constituted a majority of the population. During his tenure, however, Russian President Vladimir Putin slowly eroded Tatarstan's independence. Putin rescinded all Tatarstani laws found to contradict federal law and enforced fiscal discipline, and the Moscow headquarters of the ruling United Russia Party demanded its Tatarstani representatives revise the Gossovet's ethnic composition.2Although the Russian federal leadership's reasons for making these changes are clear, their methods of doing so without encountering substantial resistance from the republic's leadership or the Tatarstani nationalist movement's popular leaders are not. I use the example of Tatarstan to examine the ease with which the cental government regained the ground lost to some ethnic republics during the Gorbachev-Yeltsin conflict and Yeltsin's first term as president. Because Tatar nationalism and Islamic tradition were so instrumental to Tatarstan after 1991, I also examine the history of the Volga republic's Islamic renaissance, and the prospects of politicized Islam.Stage One: A Game of NationalismIn the late 1980s, as the Soviet grip on free speech and political organization loosened, nationalistic Tatarstanis mobilized to improve the status of the republic and their native culture. After Russia declared sovereignty on June 12, 1990, Tatarstan sought to elevate its status from an autonomous region within the Russian Federation to a union republic within the Soviet Union. Tatarstan and other autonomous regions, such as Chechnya, Bashkortostan, and Yakutia, profited greatly from Gorbachev and Yeltsin's 1989-91 rivalry. In the context of this power struggle, Yeltsin suggested in 1990 that the leaders of Tatarstan "take as much independence as you can"-warning if they seceded, the "decision will be final."3 However, even after the Soviet Union's collapse and Gorbachev's fall from power, Yeltsin did not focus on reining in autonmous Russian regions, instead wrestling with the parliament over constitutional powers and economic reforms.Meanwhile, before concluding a power-sharing treaty with Moscow on February 15, 1994, Tatarstan enjoyed virtual independence. The republic's government, under the leadership of the experienced Communist bureaucrat Mintimer Shaymiev, artfully employed this independence to consolidate its position vis-a-vis Moscow.4 Within Tatarstan, President Shaymiev played a subtle game with the popular nationalist movement. Although he used the movement as a bargaining chip in his negotiations with Moscow to win more concessions by presenting himself as a nationalist leader, Shaymiev carefully engaged the movement to avoid the same fate as Communist elites in Chechnya, who were ousted by the nationalist movement. 5 Shaymiev proceeded to subdue and marginalize the nationalist movement, securing his grip on political power. At the same time, the republic's status began to resemble that of a union republic within the former Soviet Union. …

This paper examines correlations between the genetic characteristics of human populations and their aggregate levels of tolerance and happiness. A metadata analysis of genetic polymorphisms supports the interpretation that a major cause of the systematic clustering of genetic characteristics may be climatic conditions linked with relatively high or low levels of parasite vulnerability. This led vulnerable populations to develop gene pools conducive to avoidance of strangers, while less-vulnerable populations developed gene pools linked with lower levels of avoidance. This, in turn, helped shape distinctive cultures and subsequent economic development. Survey evidence from 48 countries included in the World Values Survey suggests that a combination of cultural, economic and genetic factors has made some societies more tolerant of outsiders and more predisposed to accept gender equality than others. These relatively tolerant societies also tend to be happier, partly because tolerance creates a less stressful social environment. Though economic development tends to make all societies more tolerant and open to gender equality and even somewhat happier, these findings suggest that cross-national differences in how readily these changes are accepted, may reflect genetically-linked cultural differences.

DAVID LAITIN PURPORTEDLY SHOWS THAT ASSIMILATION of the Russian-speakers is more likely in Estonia than in Ukraine. His research focused on the Russians' openness to assimilation and underestimated the forbidding attitude of the Estonians, which hardly favours such assimilation. Furthermore, he referred to a number of incentives to assimilate in the distant future, while failing to recognise the prospects for growing political power of the Estonian Russian-speakers in the near future that might upset the whole structure of incentives. In Ukraine he did not appreciate the role of Western Ukraine. Western Ukraine on the one hand provides the drive for a nation-building effort, but on the other hand intermediary groups mediate this drive. Such mediation spares the Russian-speakers from abrasive attitudes such as they encounter in Estonia. Even though the boundaries between Western Ukrainians and Russians may seem as strong as those between Russians and Estonians, the boundaries between the various Ukrainian groups in actual contact are fluid. Therefore, what might be termed creeping assimilation is taking place in Ukraine, which has some empirical basis in demographic studies. I find Laitin's book (1998) a rich source for both theoretical insight and empirical information. Nevertheless, I am going to challenge the validity of some of his principal conclusions. Validity of a theory based on certain data is nothing else than lack of alternative explanations of the data that seem at least as likely as the theory

This paper discusses correlations between certain genetic characterestics of the human populations and their aggregate levels of tolerance and happiness. We argue that a major cause of the systematic clustering of genetic characteristics may be climatic conditions linked with relatively high or low levels of parasite. This may lead certain populations to develop gene pools linked with different levels of avoidance of strangers, which helped shape different cultures, both of which eventually helped shape economic development. Still more recently, this combination of distinctive cultural and economic and perhaps genetic factors has led some societies to more readily adopt gender equality and high levels of social tolerance, than others. More tolerant societies tend to be happier because they create a more relaxed environment conducive to happiness.

This paper discusses correlations between certain genetic characterestics of the human populations and their aggregate levels of tolerance and happiness. We argue that a major cause of the systematic clustering of genetic characteristics may be climatic conditions linked with relatively high or low levels of parasite. This may lead certain populations to develop gene pools linked with different levels of avoidance of strangers, which helped shape different cultures, both of which eventually helped shape economic development. Still more recently, this combination of distinctive cultural and economic and perhaps genetic factors has led some societies to more readily adopt gender equality and high levels of social tolerance, than others. More tolerant societies tend to be happier because they create a more relaxed environment conducive to happiness.

For Russians in Estonia, the prospect of Estonian independence meant a crucial change in status: from local representatives of an imperial nation to a minority in a small nation-state. We depicted the ethnic environment in which our respondents lived and worked. We then examined their command of the Estonian or Russian language as an important feature characterizing their mutual accommodation. Finally, we examined expressed attitudes by Estonians and Russians toward one another.For both Estonians and Russians, the immediate ethnic environment at work and place of residence had a substantial effect on language proficiency. The Russian-speaking respondents had a much more positive attitude toward close association with members of other nationalities than did Estonians. Most considered interethnic marriage acceptable. Many preferred to live in neighborhoods with Estonians as neighbors. On the whole, Russians were more open-minded and tolerant toward Estonians than Estonians were toward Russians. In ...

Background Many studies have investigated the impact of a wide range of social events on suicide-related behaviour. However, these studies have predominantly examined national events. The aim of this study is to provide a statistical evaluation of the relationship between mass gatherings in some relatively small urban sub-populations and the general suicide rates of a major city. Methods The data were gathered in the Ukrainian city of Dnipropetrovsk, with a population of 1 million people, in 2005–2010. Suicide attempts, suicides, and the total amount of suicide-related behaviours were registered daily for each sex. Bivariate and multivariate statistical analysis, including negative binomial regression, were applied to assess the risk of suicide-related behaviour in the city’s general population for 7 days before and after 427 mass gatherings, such as concerts, football games, and non-regular mass events organized by the Orthodox Church and new religious movements. Results The bivariate and multivariate statistical analyses found significant changes in some suicide-related behaviour rates in the city’s population after certain kinds of mass gatherings. In particular, we observed an increased relative risk (RR) of male suicide-related behaviour after a home defeat of the local football team (RR = 1.32, p = 0.047; regression coefficient beta = 0.371, p = 0.002), and an increased risk of male suicides (RR = 1.29, p = 0.006; beta =0.255, p = 0.002), male suicide-related behaviour (RR = 1.25, p = 0.019; beta =0.251, p