{"id":14794,"date":"2016-03-09T16:15:14","date_gmt":"2016-03-09T21:15:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/college.unc.edu\/?p=13139"},"modified":"2024-07-02T16:27:43","modified_gmt":"2024-07-02T16:27:43","slug":"understanding-putins-rising-popularity-in-russia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/?p=14794","title":{"rendered":"Understanding Putin\u2019s rising popularity in Russia"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"stcpDiv\">\n<figure id=\"attachment_13140\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-13140\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13140\" src=\"\/\/casdev.unc.edu\/collegearchive\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2016\/03\/Henry-Hale-1-rev-sm-002-300x246.jpg\" alt=\"Henry Hale, professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University. (photo by Shannon Harvey.)\" width=\"300\" height=\"246\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-13140\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Henry Hale, professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University. (photo by Shannon Harvey.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The controversial public image of Vladimir Putin was the subject of Henry Hale\u2019s Feb. 26 lecture \u201cWhy Do Russians Love Putin, Or Do They Really?\u201d at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Hale\u2019s lecture was sponsored by the <a href=\"http:\/\/cseees.unc.edu\/\">Center for Slavic, Eurasian and East European Studies<\/a> (CSEEES), one of six area and global studies centers at UNC.<\/p>\n<p>Hale, professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University, discussed the results of a panel study he conducted in Russia in 2012 and again in 2015. The survey polled a representative sample of over 1,600 Russians after the 2012 presidential elections regarding their opinion of Putin and the reasons they chose to support or not support him.<\/p>\n<p>Returning in 2015, the survey reached out to 1,027 of the same respondents, plus a new group of approximately 600, to gauge and to explain the surge in the president\u2019s popularity after Russia\u2019s invasion of Crimea in early 2014. The survey found that Russia\u2019s recent economic downturn and the death toll associated with the Crimean conflict did not hurt the president\u2019s popularity in a significant way.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cConflict tends to generate this rallying around the leader and an increased willingness to accept centralized authority and to support the leadership in conflict,\u201d Hale said.<\/p>\n<p>According to Hale, when the survey was first conducted in 2012, support for Putin stemmed from a variety of factors, including growth in the Russian economy; the president\u2019s right-of-center, pro-market orientation; and his job competence and leadership skills.<\/p>\n<p>The second round of the survey found that, years later, much of Putin\u2019s popularity came from the same factors. More importantly, voters who were predisposed to supporting Putin but were not as public in their support in 2012 were drawn in by the rallying effect after Crimea in 2014.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOne finding is that while a lot of this rallying behavior \u2014 this surge in support for Putin \u2014 is clearly sincere, there does seem to be elements that are not,\u201d Hale said.<\/p>\n<p>Hale said another key finding of the survey was that people\u2019s perception of Putin was based significantly on how they believed the general public perceived the leader \u2014 if they believed many other Russians supported him, they were more likely to say they did so themselves, regardless of their beliefs.<\/p>\n<p>Many of the qualities that draw Russians to Putin, Hale explained, are at odds with public perception of Putin in the U.S. For instance, Putin has not seen a surge in support among ultra-nationalists. Rather, his support has grown among Russians who favor politics that are inclusive of ethnic minorities and that support strategic alliances with Western nations.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe center was pleased to host Professor Hale,\u201d said Donald J. Raleigh, Jay Richard Judson Distinguished Professor and director of CSEEES. \u201cHe engaged the audience in a vibrant discussion about an important contemporary topic, and one that we see as central to helping more students engage in cutting-edge scholarship on Russia.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>About the Center<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Founded in 1991, CSEEES works to promote understanding of and engagement with East European and Eurasian countries through a variety of projects and activities, including teacher training, public outreach, course development, instruction in area and language studies, conferences and workshops, and faculty and student exchanges.<\/p>\n<p>Approximately 30 Carolina faculty members are affiliated with the center.\u00a0 They teach large numbers of undergraduates and attract an outstanding pool of graduate students in a variety of fields such as political science, anthropology and history \u2014 in fact, every Russian history doctoral student in the past ten years has been the recipient of one of the most prestigious academic awards, the Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad scholarships. CSEEES\u2019s interdisciplinary master\u2019s program, the Russian, Eurasian and East European studies track in the Curriculum in Global Studies master\u2019s program, has trained more than eighty students since its inception, approximately 65 percent of whom work for the U.S. government.<\/p>\n<p>Learn more about the program on the CSEEES website.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The controversial public image of Vladimir Putin was the subject of Henry Hale\u2019s Feb. 26 lecture \u201cWhy Do Russians Love Putin, Or Do They Really?\u201d at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Hale\u2019s lecture was sponsored by the Center for Slavic, Eurasian and East European Studies (CSEEES), one of six area and global [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":13140,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-diversity","category-global-programs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14794"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14794\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47626,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14794\/revisions\/47626"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}