Does Anti-Americanism Benefit Incumbents in Russia?

All respondents in a sample of adults in the Russian Federation designed to be nationally representative are asked two questions designed to assess support for the president. The sample is randomly divided into five parts, each one receiving a different preamble to the first question on support for the president. The first preamble is a control. The second preamble is a placebo treatment reminding individuals that the president handles international relations. The remaining three preambles include: a statement about United States hostility to Russia; a statement by Vladimir Putin on United States hostility to Russia; and a statement by Vladimir Putin calling for better relations with the United States.

2019-07-18

2019-07-24

One outcome variable is a simple question asking people to specify whether they strongly support, tend to support, tend not to support, or definitely do not support Putin’s activity as president. A second outcome variable draws from social psychology literature on affective attachment, asking people to state the extent to which they agree or disagree (on a four-point scale) with the statement that they feel personally insulted when someone criticizes Putin in their presence. The latter question has, in Russia, generally yielded fewer positive answers than are elicited from standard questions of support like the first question here.

The outcome of primary interest is the differences in the frequency of responses given to the two questions of Putin support by respondents in the different treatment subsamples. These differences will enable the researcher to assess whether having anti-American sentiments in mind helps or hurts support for Putin, and the extent to which such effects can be shaped by Putin’s own leading.

The experiment is embedded in the monthly omnibus survey of the highly reputable independent Russian firm Levada Market Research (LMR), using their standard methodology.

The experiment is embedded in the monthly omnibus survey of the highly reputable independent Russian firm Levada Market Research (LMR), using their regular multi-stage area probability sample designed to be representative of the adult Russian Federation population. Interviews are conducted face-to-face, with tablets (the CAPI method) used for about four-fifths of the sample. For the remaining roughly one-fifth of the sample, visual aids are presented on and answers are recorded on paper (the PAPI method). Based on data from the Russian state statistical agency in 2015, LMR’s sample is distributed among the country’s eight federal districts and the capital city Moscow, with each district divided into five strata proportionally to adult population size. All cities with a population of over one million are included as self-representative units; in the remaining (non self-representing) strata, probability proportional to size (PPS) is used to elect 1-10 urban settlements (or rural districts in rural areas). The number of interviews in a given stratum is divided equally among selected settlements. In total, 137 primary sampling units (PSUs) are drawn, including 99 urban settlements and 38 rural districts in 48 subjects of the federation (official federation-forming regions). In each selected settlement, two electoral districts (or two villages in a rural district, 18 districts in Moscow, and 8 districts in St. Petersburg) are selected at random from a complete list of electoral districts (or villages where appropriate), resulting in about 280 secondary sampling units (SSUs). Selection of households is accomplished by the random route method using route lists, and one eligible adult per household is selected according to gender, age, and education level. People institutionalized in prisons or hospitals, people conscripted into the military, the homeless, and people living in very remote, difficult-to-access, or extremely small settlements are excluded from the sample.

Roughly equal proportions of CAPI and PAPI respondents will receive each treatment. For the CAPI respondents in the sample, randomization is achieved using the randomization feature of the software Simpleforms, designed specifically for survey research. For the PAPI respondents in the sample, the research uses the randomization feature of the software Microsoft Excel to randomly assign one of the five versions of the randomized-preamble question described above to the number of each questionnaire to be administered as part of LMR’s omnibus survey. The survey agency then creates single-page “inserts,” with each insert containing only the correct version of the question to be administered for its assigned questionnaire and the number of that assigned questionnaire. The inserts are then inserted into the questionnaire assigned to that insert. The questionnaire itself (independently of the insert) contains not the actual question, but instructions for the enumerator to use the insert and instructions for recording the respondent’s response (count).

Individual

No

137 PSUs

1602 people

Approximately 320 control, 320 each for the four treatments