Staring at the West through Kremlin-tinted glasses: Russian mass and elite divergence in attitudes toward the United States, European Union, and Ukraine before and after Crimea
Journal: Post-Soviet Affairs
Year: 2019

In this paper, we investigatethe divergence in Russian public opinion between the masses and elites in terms of attitudes toward foreign countries in the post-Crimea era. To do so, we combine elite surveys conducted in Russia from 2000 to 2016 with an extensive database of Levada Center mass public opinion polling to test two competing models for explaining the observed divergence in mass and elite opinion: a demographic-driven Common Determinants model and a novel Kremlin Cueing model. More spe