Thread by @maximananyev

According to the polls, the support for the Russian invasion of Ukraine is the lowest among the young.

38% is high but it's still lower than the 84% in the oldest group.

This is not the only way younger Russians are different.

A short thread on generational divides in Russia.

The survey is from July, so pre-mobilisation.

Those who interacted with Russia's young people often confirm that they are different from older generations.

But these are impressions. What about systematic data?

Are they as fond of "strong hand" as their parents, for instance?

A question which is sometimes asked to measure how much a respondent supports autocracy without mentioning this fancy word goes something like this:

Would you like your country to be ruled by strong leader who does not have to bother with parliaments or elections.

Here is a graph that compares authoritarianism of Russian youth with that of young people in Kazakhstan, Australia, and United States.

The reason I have chosen these countries is quite random: I needed some comparison groups for context, and these are the nations I am most familiar with.

What we see here is that authoritarianism of Russian youth (37%) is close to that of their peers in Australia and the US.

Remarkably, it is lower than the authoritarianism of young Americans (41%).

Also, out of this group of countries, young Australians are least authoritarian (take that @Noahpinion!)

But there is an important generational dynamic to think about.

Here I compare authoritarianism of the youngest group (16-24) with the authoritarianism of the oldest group (65+) and add two more countries for context: Belarus and the UK.

In the post-Soviet countries the authoritarianism goes down for younger group, with the biggest drop observed in Russia. In Australia and US we see the opposite: younger people are more authoritarian. In the US particularly - much more.

This is something that others have written about -- a decline in democratic values in the "rich world". The suggested reasons include: inequality, polarisation, the feeling of alienation.

My preferred hypothesis is the long Cold War withdrawal. During the Cold War democracy in the Western block was linked to the national pride: democratic "us" against totalitarian "them". I wonder if this comes back.

Anyway.

This is not the only measure of authoritarian attitudes, but in my view one of the best ones. Other measures include just asking whether the respondent prefers democracy to other forms of government and whether elections are important.

All of them show roughly the same picture.

Young Russians are different from their peers in Australia and in the US in their social attitudes.

Here is a brief comparison of the attitudes regarding homophobia, racism. and sexism.

Young people of Russia & KZ don't look good here. Only a minority of them do not want people of other races as neighbours or support gender discrimination, but these minorities are larger than in Australia or US

Homophobia, however, is through the roof.

Although yet again...

Yet again we see interesting generational differences with the youngest group being the most tolerant - but not nearly close to their peers in the developed countries.

In sum.

Cultural evolution is happening in Russia. although in some areas more than in others. Young Russians are as fond of autocracy as their peers in Australia and the US (that is - not much). The progress in social attitudes is non-negligible but there is a long way ahead.

First label here should be 18-24, not 18-54