January 24, 2017, 11:25 pm / Opinions

I was an agent and still am an agent.

Sociologist Denis Volkov on the clearly negative public perception of foreign aid to NGOs

The Foreign Agents Law is almost five years old. There are more than 150 organizations in the corresponding register. The consequences of the law are constantly discussed in the media and at meetings with the president. However, for the majority of the population this topic is insignificant. About 70% of respondents simply do not know about the existence of such a law. About 20% of Russians have heard about it, but do not have a clear understanding of the essence of the matter. And only 2–3% of the population have a good (according to their own estimates) understanding of the topic (here and below are data from a December survey by the Levada Center, which is also included in the list of foreign agents, but is challenging this status in court). Such low awareness may seem surprising only if you do not know that more than half of Russians know nothing about non-profit organizations in general. And among those who know, almost half are unable to remember the name of at least one.

The few percent who are well-informed about the law consist primarily of the most active and knowledgeable citizens, often with liberal views. We can assume that this is the same liberal public: these people combine an active civic position (volunteering, charity, etc.) with a critical attitude towards the authorities, as well as with regular reading, watching and listening to independent media. For this category of citizens the topic is significant, which cannot be said about the rest of the population.

Surveys show that a person’s position regarding the law is determined primarily by his political views (general ideological beliefs, level of support for the authorities, sympathy for specific politicians) and channels for obtaining information about what is happening in the country and the world (whether government or independent sources are used primarily). Neither age, nor education, nor social status practically matters in this matter.

Among those who have heard about the law, more than half (56%) believe that it is designed to “limit the negative influence of the West on our country,” and only a quarter (26%) understand it as “a way of putting pressure on independent public organizations.” The conditional guardian point of view dominates the liberal position. It is quite expected that the first point of view is most expressed among regular viewers of television programs by Kiselev, Solovyov and Mikhalkov: here the corresponding ratio reaches a record 69% versus 16%. Similar sentiments are typical for communists or Putin supporters.

On the contrary, among informed people from the audience of news programs of independent television channels, the ratio of conservatives and liberals breaks down into almost equal parts: 50 to 40%. Among those critical of the president or among Navalny’s supporters, people with conventionally liberal views on the law completely predominate. However, even here, the position of the guards regarding the law is shared by up to a third of the composition. The fact that the majority of Russians consider the law on foreign agents to be a protective measure has its own irony: neither the population nor the elite today believes in the West’s ability to undermine the situation inside Russia. This has been repeatedly shown by our population surveys and by surveys of elites from the Russian research group Zircon or the American Hamilton College. And since there is no threat, is protection needed?

Little is known about the law, but the phrase “foreign agent” turns out to be more understandable. It can be stated that this expression has an exclusively negative connotation for the population (despite all the explanations of the Constitutional Court that in today’s realities the phrase has lost the negative context of the Soviet period). 60% of the population report negative associations caused by the phrase, about 30% report neutral associations, and 3% report positive associations (there are some).

The most common category of associations that we were able to identify using an open question is related to espionage: a foreign agent is a “foreign intelligence spy”, “Tsaerushnik”, “sent Cossack”, “recruiter”, “infiltrator”, etc. These ideas shared by 45% of the population. The next most common category of answers is associated with the image of an “enemy of the people” (“enemy of Russia”, “traitor”, “renegade”) – it is shared by about 7%. 4% of respondents were able to name specific neutral associations with economic activity. And only for 3% of the population a foreign agent is an image from films about James Bond or Stirlitz. Even the very raising of the question of foreign agents caused dissatisfaction and aggression among some respondents.

Among other things, this law falls on the fertile soil of the population’s suspicion of Western influence, aggravated by the current confrontation between Russia and the West. Grants from foreign foundations (both American and European) are considered the most toxic way of financing NPOs of all possible. Only 27% of Russians consider this method acceptable, while 43% hold the opposite opinion.

Not only the motives of foreign funds, businesses and citizens who pay are called into question, but also the possibility of independent goal-setting of Russian organizations that receive this money (in fact, the more different sources of funding - both Russian and foreign - the more independent the organization feels ). Only 13% of Russians are ready to believe in the good intention of foreign donors to help our country solve important social problems (even among those who have a good attitude towards the West and the regular audience of independent media, no more than a quarter of them are). Rather, people are ready to attribute to foreign sponsors the desire, along with money, to impose alien ideas and values, or the desire to recruit spies and collect information about the country. Of course, such answers are most popular among security guards (every second of them believes in such motives), but even in the liberal groups described, these tips are chosen by at least a third of the audience.

There is a consensus in Russian society that grantees cannot remain independent from their foreign sponsors. This is probably the most powerful thesis. 66% of Russians agree with him (versus 17% who disagree). And in this matter, liberal groups are almost not inferior to the security guards (if among viewers of Besogon the indicated ratio is 72% versus 14%, then among the audience of programs of independent channels it is 67% versus 24%). This is not just a matter of propaganda (otherwise we would see more significant differences between the audiences of state and independent media), but of some more general ideas. In simple terms, people are sure: whoever dines the girl, dances her. In vain, in a recent correspondence dispute with Peskov, director Zvyagintsev believed that such an attitude is characteristic only of Russian bureaucrats. As we see, the overwhelming majority of our society is ready to subscribe to it.

Summarize. For most Russians, the expression “foreign agent” is not associated with the law on NPOs; it has a clearly negative connotation and is associated with espionage for foreign intelligence services. With the exception of a small part of citizens with an active civic position, the vast majority of the population is unaware of the law. But if they knew, they would most likely support it, since the majority do not believe in either the selfless help of foreign donors or the independence of organizations that receive at least some support from abroad (it doesn’t matter whether we are talking about grants, donations private citizens or providing services to foreign companies). On these issues, even liberal-minded citizens practically coincide in their views with the guards. This means that organizations included in the register of foreign agents are unlikely to expect help from society.

The author is a sociologist at Levada Center

Extended version. The original published version can be viewed in the Vedomosti archive (smart version)