Opinion polls and authoritarian systems don’t go together. However professional or independent the pollster, any results are necessarily skewed as people weigh their responses — especially to questions about the regime — against potential consequences. Political scientists refer to this as “authoritarian bias.” A late 2015 poll by the Levada Center, Russia’s most reputable polling agency, found that 26 percent of respondents were afraid to answer political questions — and this was just those who were not afraid to admit their fear. And then there’s the perception of prevailing social trends artificially created by government monopoly on television — in Russia’s case, for nearly 17 years now.
OP-ED
Vladimir Kara-Murza: Vladimir Putin has a popularity problem
Russian President Vladimir Putin wearing protective gear visits a hospital where patients infected with the COVID-19 novel coronavirus are being treated in the settlement of Kommunarka in Moscow on March 24, 2020.
