POLITICAL VALUES IN RUSSIA, UKRAINE AND LITHUANIA - SOURCES AND IMPLICATIONS FOR DEMOCRACY

Employing data from three surveys of mass opinion conducted in Lithuan ia, Ukraine and European Russia during 1990, 1991 and 1992, we examine three prominent but competing hypotheses about the source of politica l values in the post-Soviet societies: historically derived political culture, regime indoctrination and the effects of societal modemizatio n. The literature on Soviet political culture argues that Russian mass values are distinguished by authoritarianism and love of order, value s which will be largely shared by Ukrainians, especially East Ukrainia ns, whereas Lithuanian society would not evince this pattern. Our data do not support this hypothesis. We then examine acceptance of Soviet era norms, both political and economic. We do not find support for the argument that regime indoctrination during the Soviet period produced a set of ideologically derived values throughout the former Soviet Un ion and across a series of generations. The third hypothesis - that in dustrialization, urbanization, war and changing educational opportunit ies shaped the formative experiences of succeeding generations in the Soviet societies and, therefore, their citizens' values - receives the most support: in each of the three societies, differences in politica l values across age groups, places of residence and levels of educatio n are noteworthy. The variations in political values we find across de mographic groupings help us to understand the level of pro-democratic values in each society. We find that in Russia and Ukraine more suppor t for democracy can be found among urban, better educated respondents than among other groups. In Lithuania, the urban and better educated r espondents evince pro-democratic values at about the same level as the ir counterparts in Russia and Ukraine, but Lithuanian farmers and blue -collar workers support democracy at a level closer to urban, white-co llar Lithuanians than to their Russian and Ukrainian counterparts. In all three societies, those citizens most likely to hold values support ive of democracy are those who are less favourable to Soviet-era value s and less convinced of the primacy of the need for social and politic al 'order'. Those who desire strong leadership, however, tend to have more democratic values, not more authoritarian ones.