(UNC) The controversial public image of Vladimir Putin was the subject of Henry Hale’s Feb. 26 lecture “Why Do Russians Love Putin, Or Do They Really?” at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Hale’s lecture was sponsored by the Center for Slavic, Eurasian and East European Studies (CSEEES), one of six area and global studies centers at UNC.
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.
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’s popularity after Russia’s invasion of Crimea in early 2014. The survey found that Russia’s recent economic downturn and the death toll associated with the Crimean conflict did not hurt the president’s popularity in a significant way. […]
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