Levada Center is being closed

The authorities began to fight with sociologists

On May 20, the Autonomous Non-Commercial Organization Analytical Center of Yuri Levada (ANO Levada Center) received a warning from the Savelovskaya Interdistrict Prosecutor's Office of Moscow, the general meaning of which is that the publication of the results of sociological research affects public opinion and therefore is not a scientific, but a political activity. The New Times publishes a statement by Levada Center Director Lev Gudkov

“The letter received from the interdistrict prosecutor’s office about “circumstances conducive to violating federal law” (namely, the law on foreign agents) and the subsequent warning about the inadmissibility of violating federal law puts the Autonomous non-profit organization Yuri Levada Analytical Center in an extremely difficult situation, practically forcing it to stop its activities as an independent research sociological organization conducting systematic public opinion polls in Russia.By interpreting analytical articles and publication of the results of sociological research, the comments of the Center's specialists as "political activity", the prosecutor's office is actually hanging our organization on the hook of possible sanctions, on the one hand on the other hand, and undermines its authority and business reputation, on the other hand.It is not only about the extremely vague concepts of "political activity" and "foreign funding", which allow for the most arbitrary and broad interpretations, and, consequently, the possibility of administrative actions against the leadership of the Center or even - the liquidation of our organization, but also in the consequences that the law on NGOs and foreign agents causes in various circles, whose representatives are permanent partners, customers or the subject of research conducted by the Center.

It is about the freedom of scientific activity and the dissemination of research results. Levada Center is a non-profit organization. For us, this means that the money we earn - thanks to various commissioned research (primarily marketing, but not only), we, in accordance with our statutory goals, spend on independent and initiative scientific or humanitarian projects - sociological surveys, the publication of the journal "Bulletin of the public opinions”, “Public Opinion” yearbook, holding regular conferences, etc., and do not use the profits for our own consumption. It is in this way that our research team has been carrying out systematic analytical work on the study of the structure and functions, the dynamics of collective representations for almost a quarter of a century, while maintaining its status as an independent scientific institute.

Unlike other organizations conducting public opinion polls, we do not have direct state funding or state subsidies for conducting sociological surveys, which in principle require significant financial and organizational costs, and in some cases - direct support or permission from local authorities. Funds received from foreign foundations (donations or grants won in a competitive manner) or payments made to order by foreign organizations (universities, media, research institutes, or consulting firms) make up an insignificant part of the budget of the Levada Center: in different years, approximately 1.5-3% .

In this respect, the voluntary or involuntary refusal of grants or donations from various foreign foundations, necessary in order to free ourselves from the constant danger that we will be labeled "foreign agents", does not save the situation, since the very fact of receiving funds from foreign companies, even if they work permanently in Russia, as payment for the analytical or research work performed on topics that have nothing to do with “political activity”, it can already serve as the basis for accusations of foreign funding and linking them to our research initiated in accordance with our own scientific plans and interests.

However, two circumstances are becoming another, much more significant obstacle to our successful work: the fear of interaction with “potential foreign agents” that is reanimated today and quite understandable in the past, which is characteristic of Russian officials and the intelligentsia, on the one hand, and the unwillingness of our business partners to deal with an organization that has problems with the authorities, their obvious desire to avoid unnecessary trouble, on the other.

All this taken together calls into question the continued existence and activities of the Levada Center. Following the logic of the Prosecutor's Office's Warning, we would have to stop publishing our magazine and close the Levada Center website, stop publishing, openly commenting and analyzing the results of our surveys among specialists and in the public space - in the media, at seminars and conferences, to which we agree can not.

Undoubtedly, the most correct (from the point of view of civil liability) would be to challenge in court the Warning issued to us by the Prosecutor's Office, as well as subsequent lawsuits to the Constitutional Court about the contradiction between the law on foreign agents of the Russian Constitution and other laws of the Russian Federation. However, such a path for organizations like ours turns out to be too long, fraught with the collapse of the organization of research, irreversible scientific and human losses. Therefore, this option, even in the case of a positive outcome of the lawsuits, in principle does not change the new state of affairs, which makes it impossible to continue the previous work of an independent research institute.

Currently, the leadership of the Yuri Levada Analytical Center is consulting with lawyers and is considering possible ways out of the current situation.

Director of the Levada Center, Doctor of Philosophy, Professor L.D. Gudkov"