In a recent blog (http://theivanovosti.typepad.com/the_ivanov_report/2009/01/umland.html ), Eugene Ivanov accused me of cooking up statistics in order to give an inadequate impression on Russians’ views of America, in my article "The Past Is Present" published by The National Interest Online on January 16, 2009 (http://www.nationalinterest.org/Article.aspx?id=20584 ). The contents and tone of Ivanov’s critique led me first to ignore this statement. However, as I have learned, Ivanov’s article was reposted at the CDI List section of Russia Profile (http://www.russiaprofile.org/page.php?pageid=CDI+Russia+Profile+List&articleid=a1232381631 ). Russia Profile is an analytical website that, in spite of being financed by the Russian government, publishes a wide range of views on current Russian affairs. I have, therefore, high respect for this information service, and published a number of times, on this esteemed page. As Ivanov has been given the opportunity to question, on such a distinguished platform, my academic integrity, I seem to have no choice but to reply to his far-reaching accusations in his attack with the telling title "(F)lying Numbers: The Art and Science of Interpreting Russia Polls."
First, the basic misunderstanding: As I have already clarified with Ivanov in a brief exchange on his blog (http://theivanovosti.typepad.com/the_ivanov_report/2009/01/umland.html#comment-6a00d834524a2e69e2010536de514a970b ), the article’s version published by The National Interest Online (TNI) on January 16, 2009 was not the same text that I submitted to TNI, and not a statement that fully reflects my views. Like some other publication organs, TNI has the habit of heavily editing and freely cutting submitted texts. Not being a native English speaker, I am, in principal, happy about such support. Yet, I was, like in numerous other cases involving TNI and other outlets earlier, not entirely satisfied with the fact that I did not see the new version of my text before it was published. (Those writers regularly publishing in non-academic periodicals may know of this problem.) For this reason, I have, in the meantime, re-posted a text that better reflects the views expressed in my original article submitted to TNI, at American Chronicle (http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/88068 ). Had Ivanov sent me his critique before publishing it, I would have pointed him towards the latter site with its more adequate text version.
These unfortunate circumstances lead to a number of misunderstandings in Ivanov’s interpretation of my argument. The confusion starts with a minor misrepresentation on my, in Ivanov’s words, "impressive opening paragraph" about the future of Russia which, in the original text, was not the opening paragraph (the first two paragraphs had been instead devoted to the professional risks, for an academic, to talk publicly about World War III; see the above site at the American Chronicle). It ends with a more consequential and principally false presentation of the gist of the article, as well as with Ivanov’s entire critique heading in a direction different from that of my original article.
In my original text, the argument was less about the polling numbers (submitted only after TNI’s explicit request) than about the current Russian elite discourse as expressed in political debates, academic conferences, TV talk shows, newspaper articles, etc. It was about what is and what is not said, what is regarded as politically correct and incorrect, what is permissible and impermissible to voice openly in Russia today. This – and not epiphenomal public opinion on foreign affairs the conduct of which is principally shaped by elites, anyway – is the main problem. If the trends of the last eight years, in this particular regard, continue in the future, the increasingly anti-American talk of Russia’s political and intellectual leaders could, become a, if not the major headache for humanity, again.
This failure of Ivanov’s critique is based on a principal misunderstanding that can be explained by the cuts that TNI made in my article without my approval. It can be also understood in view of the fact that, like many other Russia watchers, Ivanov continues to be cautiously optimistic about the future of Russian-American relations. I wish that Ivanov and Co. will turn out to be right, and that pessimists, like myself, will be proven wrong.
What was, however, unexplainable to me were Ivanov’s insinuations about me dreaming up polling numbers, and his speculations about my agenda. Ivanov ridicules repeatedly my mentioning of a possibility of an armed confrontation between the US and Russia – something that, I assume, many will sympathize with. However, he then concludes his statement with the assumption that "Umland does not want the improvement in U.S.-Russia relations to take place." As a result, I would appear to be suicidal: I seemingly want World War III to happen sooner rather than later.
Most disconcertingly, Ivanov goes on and on about my "(f)lying numbers" – that I am "invoking" polling data, that it "is a mystery what is so magic about these numbers," that I "pick and interpret" my numbers, that "it is not clear which of the Levada polls this number, 43 percent, came from," that, "like many other Russia ‘experts’," I do "not have a habit of referencing the polling data" I am referring to," that this gives me "an opportunity to creatively interpret cherry-picked numbers," etc. and that Ivanov "thus had to do [his] own research."
I mentioned, at the outset of the paragraph on the polling data, the Levada Center as my source. What I indeed did not mention was that the WWW address of the homepage of the Levada Center is www.levada.ru . I also did not mention that the site where I got most of my data on Russian attitudes towards the United States is the Levada Center’s site which is devoted to Russian attitudes towards the United States. I also did not mention the WWW address of the Levada Center’s site on Russian attitudes towards the United States which is www.levada.ru/russia.html . This site, like seemingly most sites of the Levada Center, is not closed or secret, but freely available (or, at least, it still was so on the evening of January 26, 2009). I used also other sites on the Levada Center’s homepage the exact addresses of which I also did not mention. Sorry.
By the way: Readers of Ivanov’s article on Russia Profile may detect an unintended irony of Ivanov’s tirade: The Russia Profile version of Ivanov’s article also does not give any references to the sites he quotes from. Ivanov too would thus seem to belong to those "Russia ‘experts’" who, in his words, do "not have a habit of referencing the polling data" they use. This impression arises because Russia Profile did not reproduce the author’s original text version, in its entirety (i.e. with the hyperlinks). Sounds familiar?
A particular nuisance was that Ivanov – after doing his "own research" – intimated that I may have simply made up the number of 43% for the Russian approval ratings for the US, in July 2008. He also wrote that there was a "more than 20 percent (from 64 to 43) drop in favorability that, according to Umland, had occurred between 2007 and July 2008." The 43% for positive views on the US in July 2008 was from the mentioned site of the Levada Center on Russian attitudes on the US at http://www.levada.ru/russia.html (on the top of the site, in the first row of the uppermost table, in the right column, in black colour). In the article to which Ivanov refers, I mention, contrary to the impression that Ivanov gives, neither the number 64 nor the year 2007, anywhere.
As the source of my numbers from the Levada Center remained unclear to Ivanov, he recommended, as an addition or alternative, 2003 and 2008 polling data from VTsIOM to disprove the allegedly "‘rising’ anti-Americanism in Russia." However, those among us a bit familiar with Russian social sciences know that VTsIOM has been put under stricter governmental control since Putin's rise – this circumstance being the major reason for the emergence of the Levada Center that employs many former VTsIOM researchers. Unsurprisingly, VTsIOM has, since the change of much of its personnel and since becoming closer to government, been accused of framing polls. Like other observers of Russia, I have, therefore, stopped using VTsIOM data. Ivanov’s quote illustrates why: According to the VTsIOM data cited by Ivanov, between 2003 and 2008 Russian negative attitudes towards the US declined from 40% to 29% (http://wciom.ru/arkhiv/tematicheskii-arkhiv/item/single/10432.html?no_cache=1&cHash=88db311008 ). Whoever knows what was happening in Russian mass media in these years will suspect that such a significant decline of popular anti-Americanism is implausible, or, at least, does not constitute a general trend. While anti-Americanism was indeed high in mid-2003 in Russia because of the war in Iraq (the Levada Center even measured 66% in April 2003, i.e. immediately after the US invasion), it is inconceivable that it fell below 30% in mid-2008. I fail to understand why Ivanov uses such obviously biased data.
In general, I did not comprehend what Ivanov wanted to communicate with his denigrating critique, and why he was so eager to present me as a manipulator and liar whom he, moreover, suspects of being paranoid. Ivanov has a Ph.D. and written enlightening articles on his blog. However, in his attack on my article, he descends to the level of the likes of the authors behind La Russophobe, contributors to the eXile, bloggers at inoSMI.ru, and similar commentators who use the WWW to spread venom, and who regularly honour political analysts with their unkind attention, yet are usually not, as Ivanov in this case, published in outlets like Russia Profile. I hope that this kind of discussion style is not going to become the standard of how the members of our community will, in the future, struggle for the best interpretation and assessment of current events in Russia.
