Indeed, it appears that Western criticism of Putin, including the sanctions (even if they were morally well-grounded) have strengthened Putin’s position domestically and “helped s<strong>to</strong>ke nationalist fervor and inspire personal feelings of resentment <strong>to</strong>wards the West.” 63 As Putin himself suggested, “Russia is a self-sufficient country; we will work within the foreign economic environment that has taken shape, develop domestic production and technology and act more decisively <strong>to</strong> carry out transformation. Pressure from outside, as has been the case on past occasions, will only consolidate our society.” 64 LGBT organizations equally pleaded <strong>to</strong> maintain dialogue with Russia in order <strong>to</strong> encourage human rights organizations in their struggle: “dialogue with Russia is important, violations against human rights must be brought up, otherwise we will be completely isolated.” Yet, while engaging with Russia might be unavoidable, it nevertheless remains imperative <strong>to</strong> fully grasp its political appeal and channels of ideological influence, in order <strong>to</strong> halt the spread of regressive values and strengthen values of democracy, open society and <strong>to</strong>lerance in <strong>Europe</strong> and beyond. Conservative values in the public opinion In order <strong>to</strong> assess the receptiveness <strong>to</strong> the values of the ideological export, we examined the extent of three values in these societies: tradition, conformity and security. All of these values are related <strong>to</strong> the “Conservation” orientation in the Schwartz universal values scale, one of the best scientifically grounded models for human values (see the Figure 1 below). 65 The most important findings are the following: 1) The population of Poland and Slovakia might be the most receptive <strong>to</strong> the traditionalist, anti-gender and anti-progressive messages; 2) The populations of all the countries under examination are strongly receptive <strong>to</strong> securitybased messages, with Hungary, Poland and Slovakia showing notably high figures in this respect; 3) Austria and Hungary are less receptive <strong>to</strong> ideologies based on traditionalism and conformity; 4) Czech public opinion seems <strong>to</strong> be receptive <strong>to</strong> security and securitization, but nontraditionalist and non-conformist tendencies are also strong here. 5) Interestingly, the values that the Putin regime emphasizes and strives <strong>to</strong> export are not dominant values in Russian society, which is neither strongly conformist, nor traditionalist, nor strongly concerned with security in international comparison. 63 See the article on Putin by The National Interest: http://www.nationalinterest.org/feature/5-things-you-needknow-about-putins-popularity-russia-13380?page=2; this article was also translate <strong>to</strong> Russian http://apostrophe.com.ua/article/world/ex-ussr/2015-08-03/diagnoz-dlya-rossii-5-fak<strong>to</strong>v-o-putine-i-<strong>to</strong>mpochemu-ego-lyubyat-v-rf/2049 64 Full speech of Putin during the Valdai Discussion Club meeting in 2014 is available here: http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/46860 65 Schwartz, S. H. (2003). “A Proposal for Measuring Value Orientations across Nations.” Chapter 7 in the Questionnaire Development Package of the <strong>Europe</strong>an Social Survey. Website: https://www.europeansocialsurvey.org/docs/methodology/core_ess_questionnaire/ESS_core_questionnaire_human_ values.pdf 20
Figure 1. The values of “Conservation” in the five countries and Russia (Source: own calculations based on the <strong>Europe</strong>an Social Survey) 0,80 0,60 0,40 0,20 0,00 -0,20 Conservation values in the respective countries (2014 - Austria, 2012 6 for all other countries, <strong>Europe</strong>an Social Survey, Schwarcz values, Centered Scores*-1) -0,40 AT CZ HU PL SK RU Conformity Tradition Security 21
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