Eastern European history shows that in the majority of post-Soviet countries, where lustration was carried out in one form or another, the situation with corruption is now considerably better than in those countries where lustration was not carried out. But what we see in Slovenia is, in fact, an clear deviation from this pattern. Lustration was not carried out in Slovenia. Nonetheless, the country is among the best performers in terms of anti-corruption measures and can be compared with Estonia, where lustration did take place. The Slovenia phenomenon has been analysed in the article ‘Fighting Corruption: The Slovenian Phenomenon’ by Yuliy Nisnevich, Professor at the School of Political Science, Academic Supervisor of the Laboratory for Anti-Corruption and Heather Stetten, independent researcher (USA).
Even today, ages-old folk culture can serve as a basis for collective identity by bringing together people who share this interest and underlying values, as evidenced by Russia's folk heritage movement. According to Rostislav Kononenko, Senior Lecturer at the HSE's Department of General Sociology, and Evgenia Karpova, Master's student at the HSE, the folk heritage movement in Russia is driven by urban intellectuals working to preserve and promote authentic folk culture.
These results were obtained during a nationwide survey of 2,000 Russians over 18 years of age as part of a Monitoring the Status of Civil Society study conducted by the HSE Centre for Studies of Civil Society and Nonprofit Sector.
The economic and political transformation following the fall of the socialist bloc has affected health and average life expectancy differently in former socialist countries. In nations where reforms led to true political and economic liberalization, health indicators are higher than in countries with hybrid regimes, according to a study by Vladimir Kozlov, a Research Fellow at HSE’s Laboratory of Social and Demographic Policies, and Dina Balalaeva, an Assistant Professor in the School of Political Science.
State funding for education systems fails to take popular demand into account. About 10% of state-funded places are not in areas that interest school-leavers. There are too few options in the humanities, and too many in engineering, research carried out by the HSE’s Institute of Education, School of Mathematics, the Educational Center of Semantic Technology and Faculty of Economics.
For the first time since the 2010 heat wave in Moscow, demographers have estimated the effects of abnormal heat, wildfires and air pollution on morbidity and mortality. Extreme heat in Moscow in the summer of 2010 caused nearly 11,000 additional deaths from diseases of the nervous and cardiovascular systems and respiratory and kidney conditions, according to a group of researchers including Tatyana Kharkova and Ekaterina Kvasha of the HSE Institute of Demography, members of the Russian Academy of Sciences, MosEconomMonitoring, and Swedish researchers.
Addiction to love may be as dangerous as alcohol or drug addiction. A person in a dependent relationship compensates for their internal deficiency, but at the same time gradually works themselves into exhaustion. By many indicators, love addiction can be attributed as a clinical disorder that can be cured by means of professional psychological help. This discovery was made in a recent study by Svetlana Skvortskova, a graduate of the Master’s programme in the HSE School of Psychology, and Vladimir Shumskiy, Associate Professor at the HSE Department of Psychology of Personality.
On 12 January, Chares Demetriou presented his book The Dynamics of Radicalization: A Relational and Comparative Perspective at a seminar of the Laboratory for Economic-Sociological Research. In his lecture, Demetriou presented new ways of analysing the radicalisation of political groups. In this research, group radicalization is being examined rather than individual radicalization which is untypical of work in this particular field.
Students who choose to pursue a master's or postgraduate degree are at a distinct advantage over those who stop after receiving a bachelor's degree, and can expect higher starting salaries and a wider career choice. Some students, particularly those studying the humanities, medicine, and natural sciences, are more likely to pursue further studies beyond the undergraduate programme, observesYana Roschina, senior research fellow at the HSE's Laboratory of Economics and Social Research, in her report 'Factors Influencing Russian Students' Educational and Employment Plans'.
Life expectancy among Russians has been increasing over recent decades. However this is more recovery than growth – making up for previous declines. Mortality rates fell in the same areas that previously accounted for their growth in the late 20th, early 21st centuries – cardiovascular disease, and external causes of death: murder, suicide, alcohol poisoning and car accidents, according to senior academic researchers at the HSE’s Institute of Demography Evgeny Andreev, Ekaterina Kvasha, and Tatyana Kharkova.
