Hostname: page-component-55f67697df-sqlfs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-05-14T06:16:07.274Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Attitudes toward Individual Responsibility and Political Reform in the Former Soviet Union

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Ada W. Finifter
Ada W. Finifter*
Affiliation:
Michigan State University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Based upon a survey of the USSR in December 1989, Finifter and Mickiewicz (1992) found that respondents with higher education were less inclined than those with lower education to support individual, versus state, responsibility, and that supporters of individual responsibility were slightly less likely than those favoring state responsibility to support political change. A recent critique challenged this analysis, arguing that higher education is always associated with support for individual responsibility and that preference for individual responsibility is always positively associated with support for political reform, and reported findings to that effect. This analysis resolves these discrepant findings and clarifies why they occurred. A replication using data from 40 societies demonstrates that the relationship between education and locus of responsibility is not universal; indeed, it appears in only a few countries. Moreover, large differences in sampling and measurement procedures and extraordinary changes over time in the real world contributed to the differences between our findings and those of our critics.

Type
Forum
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 90 , Issue 1 , March 1996 , pp. 138 - 152
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1996

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

REFERENCES

Abramson, Paul R., and Inglehart, Ronald. 1995. Value Change in Global Perspective. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Abramson, Paul R., and Ostrom, Charles W. Jr. 1991. “Macropartisanship: An Empirical Reassessment.” American Political Science Review 85:181–92.Google Scholar
American National Election Studies, 1988, 1990, 1992. Election Study Codebooks. Ann Arbor: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research.Google Scholar
Anderson, Richard D. Jr. N.d. “Speech and Democracy in Russia: Responses to Political Texts in Three Russian Cities.” British Journal of Political Science. Forthcoming.Google Scholar
Anderson, Richard D. Jr., and Grofman, Bernard. N.d. “Rhetoric and Rationality: A Study of Democratization in the Soviet Union.” Public Choice. Forthcoming.Google Scholar
Bahry, Donna. 1993. “Society Transformed? Rethinking the Social Roots of Perestroika.” Slavic Review 52:512–54.Google Scholar
Bahry, Donna, and Silver, Brian D.. 1987. “Intimidation and the Symbolic Uses of Terror in the USSR.” American Political Science Review 81:1065–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bishop, George F., Tuchfarber, Alfred, and Oldenick, Robert W.. 1978. “Change in the Structure of American Political Attitudes: The Nagging Question of Question Wording.” American Journal of Political Science 22:250–69.Google Scholar
Carnaghan, Ellen. 1991. “Socialism and the Shift toward a Market Economy: Popular Attitudes and Economic Change in the Soviet Union.” Presented at annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington.Google Scholar
Dobson, Richard B., and Grant, Steven A.. 1992. “Public Opinion and the Transformation of the Soviet Union.” International Journal of Public Opinion Research 4:302–20.Google Scholar
Duch, Raymond M. 1993. “Tolerating Economic Reform: Popular Support for Transition to a Free Market in the Former Soviet Union.” American Political Science Review 87:590–608.Google Scholar
Duch, Raymond M. 1994. “The Electoral Connection and Democratic Consolidation.” Presented at the XVIth World Congress of the International Political Science Association, Berlin.Google Scholar
Evans, Geoffrey. 1994. “The Social Bases of Democratization and Marketization in Eastern Europe.” Presented at The Social Bases of Liberalisation, an SSRC and the Institute of Political Studies conference, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw.Google Scholar
Finifter, Ada W. 1994. “Conditions for Development of a Knowledge Base about Attitudes toward Political and Economic Change; or, How Different Sample Designs, Different Questions, Different Measurement Procedures, and Real Political Revolutions Can Actually Affect Research Findings.” Presented at the XVIth World Congress of the International Political Science Association, Berlin.Google Scholar
Finifter, Ada W., and Mickiewicz, Ellen. 1992. “Redefining the Political System of the USSR: Mass Support for Political Change.” American Political Science Review 86:857–74.Google Scholar
Fleron, Frederic J. Jr. N.d. “Post-Soviet Political Culture in Russia: An Assessment of Recent Empirical Investigations.” Europe-Asia Studies. Forthcoming.Google Scholar
Gibson, James L. 1995. “Political and Economic Markets: Connecting Attitudes toward Political Democracy and a Market Economy within the Mass Culture of Russia and Ukraine” (version 2.2). Typescript. University of Houston.Google Scholar
Gibson, James L., and Duch, Raymond M.. 1993. “Political Intolerance in the USSR: The Distribution and Etiology of Mass Opinion.” Comparative Political Studies 26:286–329.Google Scholar
Hough, Jerry F. 1994. “The Russian Election of 1993: Public Attitudes toward Economic Reform and Democratization.” Post-Soviet Affairs 10:1–37.Google Scholar
Inkeles, Alex, and Bauer, Raymond. 1959. The Soviet Citizen: Daily Life in a Totalitarian Society. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Lockerbie, Brad, and Borrelli, Stephen A.. 1990. “Question Wording and Public Support for Contra Aid, 1983–1986.” Public Opinion Quarterly 54:195–208.Google Scholar
McIntosh, Mary E., MacIver, Martha Abele, Abele, Daniel G., and Smeltz, Dina. 1994. “Publics Meet Market Democracy in Central and East Europe, 1991–1993.” Slavic Review 53:483–512.Google Scholar
Mihalisko, Kathleen. 1993. “Market Reforms and the Russian Leadership.” RFE/RL Research Report 2(26):48–50.Google Scholar
Miller, Arthur H., Reisinger, William M., and Hesli, Vicki L., eds. 1993. Public Opinion and Regime Change: The New Politics of Post-Soviet Societies. Boulder: Westview.Google Scholar
Miller, Arthur H., Hesli, Vicki L., and Reisinger, William M.. 1994. “Reassessing Mass Support for Political and Economic Change in the Former USSR.” American Political Science Review 88:399–411.Google Scholar
Miller, Arthur H., Reisinger, William M., and Hesli, Vicki L.. 1996. “Understanding Political Change in Post-Soviet Societies.” American Political Science Review 90:153–66.Google Scholar
Mueller, John. 1994. Policy and Opinion in the Gulf War. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Nelson, Lynn D., Babaeva, Lilia V., and Babaev, Rufat O.. 1992. “Perspectives on Entrepreneurship and Privatization in Russia: Policy and Public Opinion.” Slavic Review 51:271–86.Google Scholar
Przeworski, Adam. 1993. “Economic Reforms, Public Opinion, and Political Institutions: Poland in the Eastern European Perspective.” In Economic Reforms in New Democracies, ed. Pereira, Luiz Carlos Bresser, Maravall, José María, and Przeworski, Adam. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Reisinger, William M., Miller, Arthur H., Hesli, Vicki L., and Maher, Kristen Hill. 1994. “Political Values in Russia, Ukraine, and Lithuania: Sources and Implications for Democracy.” British Journal of Political Science 24:183–223.Google Scholar
Rose, Richard, and Mishler, William T. E.. 1994. “Mass Reaction to Regime Change in Eastern Europe: Polarization or Leaders and Laggards?” British Journal of Political Science 24:159–82.Google Scholar
Silver, Brian D. 1987. “Political Beliefs of the Soviet Citizen: Sources of Support for Regime Norms.” In Politics, Work, and Daily Life in the USSR, ed. Millar, James R.. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Slider, Darrell, Magun, Vladimir, and Gimpel'son, Vladimir. 1991. “Public Opinion on Privatization: Republic Differences.” Soviet Economy 7:256–75.Google Scholar
Whitefield, Stephen, and Evans, Geoffrey. 1994. “The Russian Election of 1993: Public Opinion and the Transition Experience.” Post-Soviet Affairs 10:38–60.Google Scholar
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.