Levada Center

Right. Another monument to Sisyphean effort. You want to know about the people who ask questions in a country that discourages answers. Fine. Let’s get this over with. Don’t expect a pep talk.

Levada Center
A Russian polling and research organization. Because someone has to keep a record of the decay.
Formation
2003 (though its soul dates back to 1987)
Type
Research institute, independent nongovernmental organization (a status the state seems to find particularly offensive)
Purpose
Opinion polls, social research, marketing research. Essentially, holding a mirror up to a society that would rather not look.
Location
• Moscow
Key people
• Lev Gudkov, director • Tatyana Zaslavskaya, honorary president • Alexei Grazhdankin, Boris Dubin, Marina Krasilnikova, Alexey Levinson and Yuri Poletayev, Lyudmila Khakhulina
Staff
Approximately 60 souls in the main office.
Website
levada.ru

The Levada Center is a Russian independent, nongovernmental organization dedicated to polling and sociological research. It’s a rather quaint endeavor in a place where public opinion is often manufactured rather than measured. The organization bears the name of its founder, Yuri Levada (1930–2006), the first Russian professor of sociology, a man who made a career out of asking inconvenient questions.

The Center’s lineage traces back to 1987, a brief, hopeful moment when the All-Union Public Opinion Research Center (VTsIOM) was established under the guidance of academician Tatyana Zaslavskaya. VTsIOM was a novelty—an institution designed to systematically gauge the thoughts of the Soviet, and later Russian, public. As one of Russia's largest research entities,[citation needed] the Levada Center persists in conducting its own and commissioned polling and marketing research, a practice that has earned it more scrutiny than praise from the authorities. In a move that surprised absolutely no one with a functioning sense of pattern recognition, the state branded it a foreign agent in 2016 under the provisions of the 2012 Russian foreign agent law, a label designed to isolate and discredit.[1]

History

The organization that would become the Levada Center was conceived in the twilight of the Soviet Union, between 1987 and 1988. It began its life as the All-Union Public Opinion Research Center (VTsIOM, from the Russian acronym ВЦИОМ), a project spearheaded by a group of intellectuals including Tatyana Zaslavskaya, Boris Grushin, Valery Rutgajzer, and Yuri Levada. VTsIOM was a groundbreaking institution, the first of its kind to undertake representative mass surveys across the vast and varied Russian population. Zaslavskaya, who now serves as the honorary president of the Levada Center, was at its helm from 1987 to 1992. Yuri Levada then took over, leading the center from 1992 until the state’s intervention in 2003.[citation needed]

In August 2003, the Ministry for Property Relations executed a bureaucratic coup, attempting to seize control of the center by installing government officials on VTsIOM's board of directors. The entire staff of VTsIOM, in a rare and principled act of collective defiance, resigned. They regrouped and continued their work under a new name, VTsIOM-A.[2] The state, however, was not finished. The Federal Antimonopoly Service prohibited them from using that name, forcing another change. The organization was thus reborn as the "Levada Analytical Center," or simply the Levada Center, in honor of their defiant leader.[3]

Under its new banner, the Levada Center has carried on the research programs initiated by its collective during the fraught decades of the 1990s and 2000s. Among its most significant undertakings is the longitudinal study known as "The Soviet Person" or "Homo Soveticus" (Russian: Советский человек). In this ambitious project, specialists have employed recurring surveys to monitor and dissect the profound trends shaping the social fabric of post-Soviet Russia over the last 15 years.[citation needed]

Founding of VTsIOM

The genesis of the agency is inextricably linked to the professional life of its namesake, Yuri Levada, the first professor to dare teach sociology at the formidable Moscow State University.[citation needed] During the political thaw under Nikita Khrushchev—a period of relative openness—Levada was permitted to conduct limited public opinion surveys. He famously asserted in one lecture that tanks were incapable of changing ideologies, a thinly veiled critique of the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.[citation needed]

His first major collision with the authorities, however, stemmed from a survey revealing the inconvenient truth that very few people actually bothered to read the notoriously long-winded editorials in Pravda. The party newspaper responded with predictable fury, denouncing the sociologist. By 1972, as the Brezhnev era settled into its stagnant rhythm, Levada's institute was shuttered during a purge that swept some 200 sociologists from their posts in universities and research institutions.[citation needed]

Levada was brought back from the cold by the reformist Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev as the policy of glasnost gained momentum. He went on to establish the Russian Public Opinion Research Center in 1987, which was renamed the All-Union Public Opinion Research Center (VTsIOM) following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.[citation needed] It is worth noting that in a later interview, Yuri Levada[4] credited Tatyana Zaslavskaya and Boris Grushin as the original founders of VTsIOM in 1987, stating that they had invited him to join the endeavor.[citation needed]

Breakup and founding of Levada Center

VTsIOM rapidly earned a reputation for objectivity and professionalism among academics and journalists, both within the former Soviet Union and in the West. Throughout the 1990s, the agency's polls were considered a benchmark for reliability.[a 1]

Despite receiving no government funding and subsisting on contracts from the private sector from 1992 to 2003, VTsIOM remained, on paper, a state-owned entity. This was an oversight Levada had not addressed, and it proved to be a fatal flaw.[citation needed] This legal technicality provided the state with the perfect pretext to intervene. In September 2003, the government appointed a new board of directors, stacked predominantly with its own officials, to "oversee" VTsIOM's work. Not a single sociologist from the existing VTsIOM team was included in these appointments. By that point, VTsIOM had conducted over 1,000 polls.[5]

Levada suggested that the Kremlin's maneuver was partly aimed at stifling mounting public opposition to the Second Chechen War during an election season. This tactic of using legal and administrative pressure to neutralize independent voices would later be deployed against independent media outlets like NTV, TV-6, and TVS.

Following the forced change in management, Levada and his entire team walked out, leaving behind the equipment and resources they had utilized for 15 years. They founded a new private agency, initially named Analytical Service VTsIOM (VTsIOM-A). This was swiftly renamed the "Yuri Levada Analytical Center" (Levada Center) in March 2004, after the state objected. Reports on the reaction from the broader Russian sociological community are conflicting. Some accounts claim that every sociologist left with Levada in a show of solidarity,[6] while others suggest a general silence, with the exception of Grushin.[7]

The Property Ministry, acting on behalf of the government, seemed pleased by the researchers' departure. A ministry spokesman remarked, "Now they [VTsIOM-A] can really become independent, step into the market and live according to the laws of the market, which include paying taxes and competition."[This quote needs a citation]

The new director appointed to the state-controlled VTsIOM was Valery Fedorov (Валерий Федоров), a political scientist then in his late twenties with no background in public opinion polling. He was previously the director of the Center of Political Trends (Центр политической конъюнктуры). Many sources identify him as a member of the presidential administration,[8] though this is not confirmed by his official curriculum vitae.[9] He proceeded to assemble a new staff for VTsIOM, composed mostly of unknown figures.

Lilia Shevtsova, an analyst at the Carnegie Moscow Center (an institution established by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace), which had utilized VTsIOM statistics for its research, expressed her support for Levada's effort to preserve his research's independence.[a 2][clarification needed]

When questioned about the VTsIOM management change during a visit to Columbia University in the United States in September 2003, Russian president Vladimir Putin endorsed the state's actions.[10] Levada, for his part, reportedly claimed that Putin had personally thwarted at least three attempts to present him with polling data suggesting his approval rating was considerably lower than what was being widely reported.[6]

Foreign agent law and prosecution

In 2013, the Levada Center reported that between 1.5% and 3% of its total budget originated from foreign sources.[11] This was enough for the authorities to issue a public warning that it was eligible for inclusion on the "foreign agent" list under the recently enacted Russian foreign agent law.[11] In response, Levada stated it had suspended all foreign funding that year.[12]

The reprieve was temporary. On September 1, 2016, the Levada Center published poll results indicating a significant drop in support for the ruling United Russia party. Four days later, on September 5, the Russian Ministry of Justice officially declared that the pollster was "performing the functions of a foreign agent."[13][14] The designation effectively barred the center from participating in any work related to the upcoming legislative election.[15][12][16]

The center's director, Lev Gudkov, warned that the label was a potential death sentence for the organization. "This manifests the increase in internal repressions carried out by the country's leadership," Gudkov told TV Rain, as reported by The New York Times. "If they won't cancel this decision, it will mean that the Levada Center will have to stop working, because you cannot conduct polls with such a stigma put on you."[14][17]

The official blacklisting appears to have been prompted by a pro-Kremlin group known as Anti-Maidan. In July 2016, The Moscow Times reported that Anti-Maidan had sought the investigation, claiming on its website that "commissioned by the U.S. military, this Russian investigative service [Levada] gathered information in Moscow and Russia's regions [and] Wisconsin University acted as an intermediary between the Pentagon and the Levada Center."[18] The accusation was, to put it mildly, unsubstantiated.

Structure

The nongovernmental organization known as the Levada Analytical Center was originally founded as the "All-Union Public Opinion Research Center" (VTsIOM) in 1987–1988. Following the aforementioned internal changes—a polite term for a state takeover—it was re-established in 2003 as an independent nongovernmental entity.[citation needed]

The center conducts public opinion and research polls across a spectrum of disciplines, including sociology, economics, psychology, and marketing. It operates with approximately 50 personnel in its Moscow office, supported by a network of 80 fieldwork supervisors in regional branches and around 3,000 trained interviewers. This infrastructure makes it one of the largest full-service research agencies in Russia.[citation needed]

Its key personnel are the original founders of the company, the same individuals who initiated its core research programs at VTsIOM and have continued them at the Levada Center. From 2003 until his death in 2006, the director was Yuri Levada. In December 2006, he was succeeded by Lev Dmitrievitsch Gudkov.[citation needed]

The center’s primary research departments and their directors are:

Social and Political: Boris Dubin
Living Standards: Marina Krasilnikova
Qualitative: Alexey Levinson
Social and Economic: Lyudmila Khakhulina
Marketing Research: Yuri Poletaev

Relationships

The Levada Center maintains partnerships with various regional research centers throughout Russia, the CIS, and the Baltic states. Its partners and clients include both nonprofit Russian and international companies.[19] The center also publishes the sociological journal The Russian Public Opinion Herald.

Internationally, the Levada Center is a member of associations such as ESOMAR[20] and ОIRОМ.[21] Its experts are frequent contributors to conferences and round-table discussions hosted by organizations like the Liberal Mission Foundation (Фонд «Либеральная миссия»), the Carnegie Moscow Center, The Gorbachev Foundation, Memorial, the Public Lectures of the Polit.ru Project (Публичные лекции Полит.ру), the Moscow Higher School of Social and Economic Sciences (Московская высшая школа социальных и экономических наук), the Public Center of A.D. Sakharov (Общественный центр им. А. Д. Сахарова), and the Khodorkovsky Readings (Ходорковские чтения).

Articles, interviews, and expert opinions from the Levada Center appear regularly[when?] in both domestic and foreign media. Its analysis has been featured in outlets such as Kommersant, Vedomosti, The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times, among others. Within Russia, its work is published in journals like Pro et Contra, Otechestvenie zapiski (Отечественные записки), Social Studies and the Present (Общественные науки и современность), The New Times, Ogoniok, and Novaya Gazeta.

The center continues to publish the Journal of Public Opinion. From 1993 to 2003, its editorial staff produced the journal Monitoring of Public Opinion: The Economic and Social Change, which was named after one of the major research programs developed under the supervision of academician Tatyana Zaslavskaya.

The Levada Center is included in the list of independent analytical centers of Europe published by Freedom House.[22] Data published by the center has been utilized for The Economist's Special Report on Russia.[23] In collaboration with the Levada Center, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty broadcasts a weekly show titled Public Opinion (Общественное мнение: граждане России у микрофона Радио Свобода).[24]

Back in 1988, the research team that would later form the Levada Center conducted the first-ever study of consumer preferences in the USSR. Today, the center continues to conduct a broad array of marketing and sociological research, employing a variety of modern research techniques.

Research

The research conducted by the Levada Center is fundamentally based on regular, nationwide public opinion surveys. Some of their completed studies include:[citation needed]

Homo Sovieticus (Russian: Советский человек): A landmark study consisting of five waves of nationwide surveys in 1989, 1994, 1999, 2003, and 2008, tracking the evolution of the post-Soviet citizen.
Monitoring of Electoral Preferences in Russia: Conducted during the election cycles of 1993, 1995–1996, 1999–2000, 2003–2004, and 2007–2008.
Education program in workplaces on HIV / AIDS in Russia: Commissioned by the International Labor Organization and the U.S. Department of Labor in 2005.
"Youth of Russia" (2005–2007)
"Western values and democracy" (2006)
"The relation of population to the police reforms" (2007)
"The European project on school studies on alcohol and drugs. ESPAD-2007"
"Opinion of HIV-positive mothers on the experience of receiving health and social care": Commissioned by UNICEF in 2008.
"Reading in Russia – 2008. Trends and Issues." (2008)
"Russian Myths" (2008)
"Awareness of Russian citizens on the activities of law enforcement" (2008)
"The problem of quality education and the installation of permanent education in contemporary Russia"
"Monitoring of elections to the Moscow City Duma in October 2009"
Voices from Russia: Society, Democracy, Europe (2006).[25]
"The Problem of 'Elites' in Contemporary Russia" (2005–2006).
Voices from Russia: What the Russian Middle Class Think about Their Own Country and about Europe (2008).[26]
International Social Survey Program (ISSP), since 1991.[27]
New Russia Barometer, in collaboration with the Centre for the Study of Public Policy (University of Strathclyde, University of Aberdeen), since 1991.[28]
World Public Opinion international surveys.

Their most significant ongoing studies include:[citation needed]

The International Social Survey Program (ISSP), since 1991.
International research with Inra Hooper / RSW / NOP-World / GfKNOP, since 1991.
Monitoring social and economic changes, conducted bi-monthly since February 1993.
Regular participation in the international World Public Opinion studies.
Index of consumer sentiment.
Index of social attitudes.
The index of financial sentiment (IFS), in collaboration with the Center of Macroeconomic Research of Sberbank, Russia.

Reception

The utility of polling in an authoritarian state is, naturally, a subject of debate. In 2015, the director of the Levada Center himself conceded that drawing direct conclusions from Russian poll results or comparing them to polls in democratic states was problematic. He pointed out that in the absence of genuine political competition, where voters are not offered credible alternatives, public opinion is overwhelmingly shaped by state-controlled media that lionizes those in power and systematically discredits any opposition.[29]

In 2016, the Russian justice ministry officially classified the Levada Center as a foreign agent, a designation intended to undermine its credibility.[12]

Despite this, an LSE blog in 2022 referred to their data as "The most reputable public opinion data available in Russia," noting the organization has been conducting regular surveys since 1988.[30]

However, the operating environment has grown increasingly hostile. As of 2022, a significant number of respondents in Russia refuse to answer pollsters' questions, fearing negative repercussions for expressing their true opinions.[31][32] This has led to criticism of the center's methodology. In 2022, Sam Greene, director of the Russia program at King's College London, argued that the Levada Center should be more transparent by publishing the percentage of respondents who refuse to participate in their surveys.[33]

Footnotes

^ A free-access, English-language assessment of the accuracy of poll ratings published by VTsIOM throughout the 1996 presidential and parliamentary election year is offered by an Indiana University site at "Opinion Poll Data". cs.indiana.edu . Archived from the original on 21 September 2006. Retrieved 5 June 2009. .
^ Oksana Yablokova, "Levada Leaves VTsIOM for VTsIOM", The Moscow Times , 10 September 2003. This article is cached by a Yabloko website at
Oksana Yablokova. "Levada Leaves VTsIOM for VTsIOM-A". Archived from the original on 17 June 2011. Retrieved 17 June 2011. .