Studying political orientations

"Studying political orientations" (by Dmitriy Gavra and Nikolay Sokolov) an alyzes political orientations of Russia's population as dealt with in the s tudies by the lending Russian sociology centers and in the author's own sur veys. The issue is discussed of a correct definition of the political orien tation notion, of its empiric interpretation and operationalization. Some s tructural models of the political orientations are criticized. An original model of the political orientations structure is proposed by the authors. M ethods to empirically analyze validity and workability of this model are de scribed and corroborated by the survey results obtained during 1996-1998.