This web page is the culmination of research
by five Grinnell College undergraduates on Russian public opinion.
Under the instruction of Political Science Professor Robert Grey,
Andy Civettini,, Cara Kitagawa, Brad Oremland, Kasia Piekarz and
Adam van Alstyne were able to study politics in an exciting and
dramatically different way. The research experience was divided
into three separate parts.
Initially, the group spent the spring 2000 semester meeting and
discussing 20th century Russian political history. During the
summer of 2000,
the group began working with Russian public opinion survey data,
using SPSS to analyze these data. Each student researched an
aspect of Russian politics that interested him/her personally
and produced a paper based on the data analysis.
During the fall 2001 semester, four of the five papers were substantially
rewritten for presentation at the annual meeting of the Iowa
Conference of Political Scientists. Two of the four were subsequently
selected from a national competion and were presented at a conference
at Rice University during winter break. This page presents the
four papers finished this past fall. The fifth student, Andrew
Civettini, spent the fall on the Grinnell-in-London program and
will continue his project this semester, with a presentation scheduled
at a major undergraduate research conference in Eastern Iowa.
Subsequent to his presentation, his paper will be added to the
web site.
Note from the Students:
The research team would like to thank Professor
Grey for the generous amounts of time and wisdom he has shared
with us. It has truly been a rewarding and memorable experience
for all of us. We also thank the College for its generous funding
of our project. Finally, we would also like to thank Timothy Colton
at Harvard, Jerry Hough at Duke, and Bill Zimmerman at the University
of Michigan, and Paul Heywood,William Miller, Stephen White from
the University of Glasgow, and Vicki Hesli, Art Miller, and Bill
Reisinger from the University of Iowa for their data.