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| 15 октября, 2013

Foundation for Public Opinion (FOM) and the Russia Public Opinion Research Centre (VTsIOM) Approve Compilation of Political Ratings

Izvestia publication

By Anastasia Kashevarova , Pyotr Kozlov and Sergei Podosenov

Sociologists and the heads of political Foundations have decided to join forces in order to create a consolidated approach to the ratings of Ministers and Governors. At present every expert centre compile ratings according to their own criteria.

A source in the Presidential Administration told Izvestia that the ratings of officials should be well founded and not just ‘plucked from the air’.

‘We need to develop a common method of compiling ratings’ said the source. ‘This will involve both leading political scientists and leading sociologists and ratings will then be worked out based on their findings. Of course the opinions of people who live in the regions will also be taken into account.’

The Foundation for Civil Society Development will hold a round table meeting on 15^th October which will discuss proposals on how the expert community can work together. The discussion will be attended by the directors of FOM, VTsIOM and Dmitrii Badovskii, the Director of the Institute of Socio-economic and Political Research, as well as a number of other political scientists.

Konstantin Kostin, head of the Foundation for Civil Society Development believes that the centres which are responsible for compiling the ratings (both those who are long established and have a good reputation and those which have been recently set up) should embrace the data from related disciplines. It is no longer enough to limit oneself to a simple point system compiled by experts which is based entirely on how the experts themselves assess the situation in the regions. This leads to a subjectivity which should be avoided. They should also include data from sociologists and economists.

‘I believe that it is extremely important that the new system takes data from sociologists into account as well as information on the level of well-being in the region. It should also factor in statistics on economic indicators that directly affect the levels of employment, wages and therefore life in the regions as a whole’ said Kostin.

Valerii Fedorov, the General Director of VTsIOM told Izvestia that in all three existing types of rating (sociological, economic and ratings from experts) problems most often arise from the surveys made by experts because the training for this is the least labour intensive and the results are therefore quite primitive. However there is no point doing away with them altogether. One just needs time for the people who employ them (the Governors, Federal institutions and political candidates standing for various positions in the regions) to understand their limitations and do something about it.

‘Sociological ratings are expensive to carry out – people in 80 regions have to be surveyed and very few organisations have the ability to do this’ says Fedorov. ‘Compiling ratings on the basis of an analysis of economic data is cheaper because the statistics are already there. But if one is to do this then one needs to really sit down and pore over the data carefully and then combine all the statistics to get the full picture. The methodology for expert surveys is both simple and complicated. To put it bluntly, you get three friends together, ask them a few questions and there’s your rating. But if your neighbour asked three of his friends for their opinion, you would get a completely different result. But they’re all experts! That’s why we end up with such subjective results!’

Alexander Oslon, President of the ‘Public Opinion’ Foundation believes that ratings can be divided into two categories: informed and random. The former is based on clear and transparent procedures, while the latter is drawn up by experts on the basis of their own beliefs.

‘The most important factor when rating Governors is how the people view them’ says Oslon ‘– in other words, the sociological rating. But there are several approaches to this. One should also take into account the opinions of business people, investors and government officials who have well founded, clear cut evaluation criteria.’

But Alexei Mukhin, the General Director of the Centre for Political Information does not believe in the possibility of creating a ‘transparent and open rating system.’

‘It’s just not possible’ he says. ‘Evaluation criteria is always going to be subjective. Ratings are always subjective. There will always be random ratings and you will always find someone to commission them and pay for them. Any attempt to try and create something more uniform which pleases everyone is a bit like the opposition leaders trying to get together and come to some agreement. It’s possible for a short period, but it will always end in disaster. Cracks will soon appear in this common methodology because many centres are making money out of pursuing their own system.’

Last week, several political centres announced their ratings for Governors and they were virtually all contradictory. A meeting was then held in the Presidential Administration under the guidance of the First Deputy Chief of Staff, Vyacheslav Volodin, where it was decreed that an expert committee should develop a unified system to evaluate the work of government officials.

As previously stated in the Kremlin, it is vital to take a professional and cautious approach to compiling ratings of Governors.

A source in the Presidential Administration believes: ‘Words can be weapons. And when a verdict is pronounced on the performance of the head of a region, one should remember that this also affects his investment potential and often gives rise to a negative attitude to the whole administration of the region.’

The Kremlin believes that it should be sociologists - taken from highly professional companies - who should be put in charge of compiling ratings and that they should take into account the real life situation in the regions and the opinions of the people who live there.