indy.media.hu független média központ

Fewer than a third of Ukrainians approve of the change to multiparty democracy, according to a wide-ranging poll by the Pew Research Center. In Russia, a majority mourns the Soviet Union, and nearly half say there ought to be a Russian empire. In every former Soviet bloc country polled, fewer people now support the shift to capitalism than in 1991. Seventy-two percent of Hungarians say their economic situation was better under the Communists.

The survey comes amid a financial crisis that is straining the adolescent market economies of the old Eastern bloc, and its findings reflect mixed — and sometimes paradoxical — attitudes in Russia and Eastern Europe.

Overall, majorities — albeit some slender ones — in every country but Ukraine approve of the shift to democracy. Ethnic hostilities, while persistent, have generally declined, and majorities or pluralities in all countries except Hungary and Ukraine welcome capitalism.

But significant worries remain about corruption, judicial fairness and the privileges of the rich and well-connected. Older people are far more wary of the new systems than their younger compatriots.

In one paradox, most nations are generally more favorably disposed toward immigrants than in 1991 — but also support tighter immigration controls.

In spring 1991, amid the early, turbulent moments of the East’s emergence from communism, Pew’s predecessor, the Times Mirror Center, surveyed 12,569 people in nine countries (the U.K., Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland and Spain) and three Soviet republics (Lithuania, Russia and Ukraine). This fall, the Pew center returned to those places.

In some ways, the Eastern countries have converged with Western ones. Opinions on the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization are generally favorable everywhere except Hungary and the U.K., which are both sour on the EU.

In other areas, a gap remains. Roughly twice as many people in the East disapprove of ethnic and religious diversity as do their counterparts in France, Spain, Germany and the U.K.(Italy, where 84% have an unfavorable view of Gypsies, is a Western exception.)

In the former Eastern bloc, the financial crisis has amplified disparities: The Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland, which have weathered the turbulence relatively well, are most welcoming of democracy and capitalism. However, battered Hungary, Ukraine and Lithuania are still trying to claw their way back. Hungary is a notable outlier. Support for capitalism was 80% in 1991; it is now 46%. Recession has worsened discontent with the government.

„What people think of capitalism and democracy is very strongly linked to what people think of the government,” says Márk Szabó of the Perspective Institute in Budapest. His firm’s polls show more than half of Hungarians don’t believe the government can handle the crisis. Hungarians’ dismay with the market economy has been mounting for years, Mr. Szabó says, as it becomes clearer that promised social benefits can’t be sustained.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125717785492623069.html