As a regular feature of the Russian Social Science Review, we try to allocate one issue per volume to comparative studies from various fields of research. In the current issue our selections have been arranged by continent. The far-flung subjects of Igor V. Zadorin’s study are all constituents of the Russian Federation– four frontier regions (Crimea, Primorsky Krai, Kaliningrad, and Murmansk) and two from the interior of the country (Kostroma and Chuvashia). The author compares survey and focus group data from the six regions on perceptions of the federal center, “defense consciousness,” openness, and levels of social solidarity and trust–a recurrent theme in this issue. Anna V. Andreenkova analyzes the considerable differences among socio-demographic and national groups in nine post-Soviet countries when it comes to the sorts of questions that exacerbate distrust of researchers or violate various norms of propriety or personal privacy. Pavel Starosta and coauthors explore the dimensions of the “trust deficit” in several cities of Central and Eastern Europe, finding considerable distrust of institutions and relatively stronger social trust in more homogeneous environments. Next, Anna V. Andreenkova uses data from the European Social Survey to uncover patterns in national responses to the dilemmas that economic crises, migration and demographic trends, and other factors pose for the need and sustainability of social support systems. Natalia E. Tikhonova goes global to see how income stratification in Russia compares internationally, while Larisa V. Mel’nikova cites OECD data on world cities to dispel the “ideology of megalopolises.” Finally, we circle back to the frontier, this time to compare the legacy of the Soviet model for the development of the far north through forced migration with the market models characteristic of the United States, Canada, and Norway.
—P.A.K.