















































29                Canadian Journal of European and Russian Studies, 16(1) 2022: 29-54 
                      ISSN 2562-8429 

 

 

 

COVID-19 and the Russian Regional Response: Blame Diffusion and 

Attitudes to Pandemic Governance 

Matthew Blackburn, University of Warsaw1 

Derek S. Hutcheson, Malmö University, Sweden2 

Bo Petersson, Malmö University, Sweden3 

Elena Tsumarova, North-West Institute of Management Russian Academy of National 

Economy and Public Administration, Russia4 

  
 

 

 

Abstract 

As was the case with other federal states, Russia’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic was 

decentralized and devolved responsibility to regional governors. Contrary to the common 

highly centralized governance in Russia, this approach is thought to have helped insulate the 

government from criticism. Using local research and analysis based on a national representative 

survey carried out at the height of the pandemic during the summer of 2021, the article charts 

the public response to the pandemic across Russia. It examines the regionalization of the 

response, with an in-depth focus on two of the Russian cities with the highest infection rates 

but differing responses to the pandemic: St. Petersburg and Petrozavodsk. There are two main 

findings: at one level, the diffusion of responsibility meant little distinction was made between 

the different levels of government by the population; at another level, approval of the pandemic 

measures was tied strongly to trust levels in central and regional government. 

 

  

  

 
1 Matthew Blackburn is a Research Fellow at the Department of Political Science at the University of Warsaw and 

an Affiliated Researcher at the Institute of Russian and Eurasian Studies at Uppsala University. 
2 Derek S. Hutcheson is Professor of Political Science at Malmö University, Sweden. 
3  Bo Petersson is Professor of Political Science and co-director of the research platform Russia, Ukraine and the 

Caucasus Regional Research (RUCARR) at Malmö University, Sweden. 
4 Elena Tsumarova is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Comparative Political Studies North-West 

Institute of Management Russian Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. 



30                Canadian Journal of European and Russian Studies, 16(1) 2022: 29-54 
                      ISSN 2562-8429 

 

Introduction  

While the COVID-19 pandemic presented a serious challenge to political systems across the 

globe, the very criteria for success in COVID-19 governance are divisive. How to weigh saving 

lives and avoiding the overloading of hospitals against economic damage, mental health crises, 

and the violation of civil liberties? The question of which countries have paid too high a price 

or persisted with ineffective measures for too long remains vital for future pandemic 

management and discussions about the relative strengths and weaknesses of democratic and 

autocratic governance.  

Early observations about the benefits of autocratic rule for COVID-19 management have not 

been borne out; democracies and autocracies alike experienced outbreaks and overwhelmed 

healthcare systems. Lockdowns and vaccination drives have involved different methods in 

autocratic and democratic contexts, but the results have varied in ways that suggest factors other 

than political regime type are important. The focus of this article is on the Russian Federation, 

whose special brand of electoral authoritarianism has previously been understood by many as 

being halfway between liberal democracy and closed authoritarianism. During the COVID-19 

pandemic, contradictory trends were observed in Russian politics, with the devolution of 

COVID-19 governance to the regions combined with hyper-centralizing constitutional reforms 

further empowering the president and a wave of repressive laws enforced against political 

opposition and civil society in 2021.    

This article examines the extent to which the delegation of responsibility to the regions affected 

levels of public trust in the state’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and explores how 

variations in COVID-19 policies played out in regional case studies. The main empirical 

question is whether the delegation of responsibility to the regions led to successful displacement 

or a sharing of the blame for the management of the crisis. This article examines the public 

reaction to COVID-19 governance through surveys on nationwide and regional levels as well 

as an in-depth focus on Russia's second-largest city, St. Petersburg, and the provincial capital 

of Petrozavodsk. This article uses these layers to analyze the public response to the anti-

pandemic measures and the regional diversity of the approaches to it. 

The authors of this article find that policy responses to COVID-19 were highly regionalized but 

that people tended not to differentiate between federal and regional authorities when it came to 

the responsibility for handling the crisis. The authors argue that this reflects broader attitudes 

to governance and the state in Russia. Trust in the respective levels of government was the 

largest predictor of approval of COVID-19 governance; this suggests that the Kremlin’s 

devolution approach to COVID-19 management was relatively successful. Overall, this article 

identifies a relationship between less invasive COVID-19 governance and higher COVID-19 

governance approval ratings, which suggests that limits on state intervention in everyday life 

are still an important component of the ‘social contract’ behind the Putin system. Nonetheless, 

with developments surrounding the war in Ukraine and the mobilization of military reserves in 

the autumn of 2022, that ‘social contract’ is surely now under more serious pressure in the post-

COVID period. 

 

Electoral authoritarianism and COVID-19 governance: Framing the Russian case 

During the first phases of the pandemic, political leaders across the globe seemed markedly 

indecisive and devoid of clear strategies of action (Arukwe 2022). There was a general tendency 

for authoritarian regimes to react later and harder to the pandemic than more democratic ones 

(Nelson 2021). Electoral authoritarian regimes such as Russia, Iran, and Kazakhstan hardly 



31                Canadian Journal of European and Russian Studies, 16(1) 2022: 29-54 
                      ISSN 2562-8429 

 

distinguished themselves as successful managers of the pandemic (Åslund 2020). Intuitively, 

one could explain this by pointing out that electoral authoritarianism lacks the key advantages 

of both liberal democratic and closed authoritarian states. Electoral authoritarianism, with its 

flaunting of democratic practices, lacks liberal democracies’ strengths in information capacity, 

which, through openness on gathering and disseminating key data, serves to combat pandemics. 

Electoral authoritarianism also lacks the advantages of closed authoritarian states that can use 

full coercive capacity to enforce strict measures to curb their spread (Mao 2021). Electoral 

authoritarian regimes thus risk falling in between the two poles and excelling in neither domain.  

In determining Russia’s position as electoral authoritarian at the time of this study (2020-21),5 

there are three points to be made on governance, social trust, and legitimacy in Russia. The first 

is that the system has been rather resilient and broadly achieved the consent of the governed 

(Greene and Robertson 2019; Loftus 2022) with polling data showing increased trust in certain 

parts of the state in comparison with the Yeltsin period (Levada 2021) and broad agreement 

with the Kremlin’s statist agenda (Volkov and Kolesnikov 2018). Secondly, in contrast to 

closed authoritarian systems like China, Russia has, prior to 2021-22, had a less invasive state. 

State responses to protests have been selective and not uniformly repressive (Greene 2014). 

Thirdly, the basic restoration of state capacity and the delivery of basic state outputs, while 

below the level expected in many Western countries, has been considered an acceptable 

compromise between an invasive Soviet-style state and the erratic liberal reforming state of the 

1990s in much of Russian society. 

It is clear that the basic achievements of holding Russia together and having a functional state, 

things not considered urgent in most Western societies, are marked as key achievements 

amongst both Russian elites and the masses, with most of the credit going to the President. The 

popularity of these statist priorities, visible in polling data, taken together with the paradox of 

rather minimalistic expectations toward the state, must be kept in mind when examining 

responses to COVID-19 governance. To summarize the social contract (at least as it existed 

until the start of the war in Ukraine in 2022) – the president or regime ensures the state is 

“strong” insofar as territorial integrity, social order, macro-economic stability, national 

independence, and great power status are retained. Meanwhile, the people put up with 

corruption, weak institutions, and governance-related problems with the proviso that the state 

does not become too invasive or predatory to them as individuals. Issues such as 

democratization, civil rights, the rule of law, and improving institutions are tacitly understood 

to be off the agenda.  

 

The political context of the Coronavirus pandemic and Russia's model of federalism  

Prior to the outbreak of the COVID pandemic, economic stagnation, falling approval ratings 

(Levada 2022), and question marks over President Vladimir Putin’s political future after his 

fourth presidential term (2018-24) cast clouds over the Kremlin’s political agenda for 2020. In 

a step that sought to regain political momentum, Putin announced sweeping constitutional 

changes in January 2020. The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic partly interfered with this 

agenda, forcing Putin to cancel several of his 2020 planned events and conduct his affairs from 

his office over video link (Blackburn and Petersson 2021). This approach was out of step with 

the image Putin had promoted over the last two decades as a brave and decisive man of action 

 
5 Here we must add the caveat that since the outbreak of the intensified war on Ukraine at the end of February 

2022, there is evidence Russia is shifting to a closed authoritarian system. This is, however, subsequent to our 

article’s timescale (03.2020-01.2022), and we argue that Russia remained an electoral authoritarian regime during 

the period we examined. 



32                Canadian Journal of European and Russian Studies, 16(1) 2022: 29-54 
                      ISSN 2562-8429 

 

(Frye 2021; Petersson 2021). In the end, he spent close to a year in a specially constructed 

underground facility – a point capitalized on by Alexey Navalny, who lampooned the president 

as an “old man in a bunker,” fearful of contracting the disease.    

With Putin taking a back seat, the stage was seemingly set for regional governors to show what 

they could do. Two factors played a role in the decentralization of the responsibility for 

managing the pandemic: the country’s size (a single policy devised in Moscow surely could not 

apply uniformly to regions several thousand kilometres away) and the question of where 

responsibility (or blame) would lie. By the presidential decree originally issued on April 2, 

2020, the regional governors of the Russian Federation were mandated to “implement a set of 

restrictive and other measures aimed at ensuring the sanitary and epidemiological well-being 

of the population within the boundaries of their territories” (Presidential Decree 2020). Russia’s 

decentralized approach followed the model of many other federal countries by sharing the 

management of the pandemic between the centre and the constituent federal subjects and 

delegating significant authority downwards (Chattopadhyay et al. 2022).  

Yet, in the Russian case, some key points must be made about the nature of centre-region 

relations and why this approach stood out. Firstly, from his very first years as president, Putin 

has deployed centralized methods of state-building to wrest power back from the regions, 

reducing their autonomy stage by stage (Busygina 2016).6 While constitutional amendments 

brought about the hyper-centralization of power in 2020, the decentralization of COVID-19 

governance should be seen as an exceptional short-term measure rather than any permanent 

reform of federalism in administrative or fiscal terms (Burkhardt 2020).  

Secondly, by making regional governors accountable for the management of the crisis, the 

central authorities could shift blame downwards (Smyth et al. 2020; Blackburn and Petersson 

2021; Terzyan 2021; Shirikov et al 2023). The simple rationale was that the political centre 

takes the credit for impressive nation-level achievements while regional leaders, deprived of 

sufficient resources, are the ready-made fall guys when chaos and disorder strike at the local 

level (Busygina 2019; Smyth et al. 2020; Malinova 2020; Petersson 2021). This reserves the 

privilege of the president to step in at the very last moment and seemingly put things right.  

Thirdly, over the last ten years, being in the position of regional governor has increasingly 

reflected not the approval of the local population but of the Kremlin. For example, between 

2017-2019, more than two-thirds of governors were removed (Ivanov and Petrov 2021) and 

often replaced by outsiders with strong Kremlin connections (but no local roots) that were 

parachuted into regional leadership roles. Regional governors of this new type simply cannot 

be expected to contradict the president or enter into public disputes with the federal centre. They 

conform to the key positions of state media on most issues and accept the primacy of key federal 

prerogatives, gaining, in return, a free hand in other matters. This loyalty is unsurprising; such 

governors owe their positions to the political centre and their fate is very much tied up with that 

of the president and the political system as a whole. The authors of this article agree with 

Busygina and Filippov (2021) that the regional authorities are essentially no less invested in 

maintaining the stability of the system than the Kremlin itself.  

The conformity of regional governors should be noted. No governors broke ranks at any stage 

to complain about a lack of resources or criticize the federal authorities. They all followed the 

order to conduct the June/July referendum on constitutional amendments in 2020, regardless of 

the COVID-19 situation in their region. A comparison of excess mortality and reported COVID 

 
6 Direct gubernatorial elections were abolished in 2004, and when they were restored in 2012, this included a 

municipal and presidential filter to easily exclude unacceptable oppositional candidates (Blakkisrud 2015, 115). 



33                Canadian Journal of European and Russian Studies, 16(1) 2022: 29-54 
                      ISSN 2562-8429 

 

statistics indicated that many of them appear to have manipulated COVID-19 death statistics to 

ensure conformity to the narratives in state media (Busygina and Filippov 2021; Kofanov et al., 

2022). The image presented of a unified power vertical without dissenters is combined with 

deliberate distortion of Russia’s COVID-19 response, which is bound to have an effect on 

public opinion.  

 

Research design and hypotheses 

To investigate attitudes on state management of COVID-19, the authors of this article examine 

three levels: (1) the nationwide attitudes toward how federal and (2) regional authorities 

handled the pandemic seen in an aggregate perspective across Russia; (3) a specific qualitative 

focus on two case studies: St. Petersburg and Petrozavodsk. There has been near-universal 

acknowledgement for centuries that legitimate government rests on trust between the rulers and 

the ruled (Newton et al. 2017). At the most basic level, trust is “the belief that others will, so 

far as they can, look after our interests, that they will not take advantage or harm us” (Newton 

1999, 170). Central to this study are four hypotheses that connect the population’s trust in the 

respective levels of government with their expectations of policy delivery when it comes to 

COVID-19 governance: 

• H1: it would be expected that those who trust the federal authorities more than the 
regional ones are more likely to approve how federal authorities handled the COVID-

19 pandemic. 

• H2: conversely, those who trust the regional authorities more than the federal ones will 
give more credit for handling it well to the regional authorities. 

• H3: support for federal measures will be positively correlated with trust in the federal 
government. 

• H4: support for regional measures will be positively correlated with trust in the regional 
government. 

To assess the above hypotheses, data are used from a specially commissioned national 

representative survey conducted in the Russian Federation in June 2021 (Malmö 

University/Levada-Center 2021). Fieldwork was conducted in the form of face-to-face 

interviews conducted in Russian in a representative set of 97 urban and 40 rural locations from 

June 17-28, 2021. The survey contained 28 questions (plus demographic information). It was 

commissioned by Malmö University and carried out by the Levada Center, Russia’s leading 

independent sociological company. The national representative sample size was N=1623, with 

a deepened representative sample at the city level in three major cities (St. Petersburg, 

Ekaterinburg, and Petrozavodsk) of 300 or 301 respondents, respectively. In total, the weighted 

sample size was N=2525. The refusal rate was 42 percent, and the margin of error is not more 

than +/- 3.4 percent at the 95 percent confidence level. Despite the issues of surveying public 

opinion in authoritarian countries (Robinson and Tannenberg 2019), the authors of this article 

have reasons to assume that the survey results in this article are not overly affected by these 

factors.7 

 
7 First, the national representative survey is conducted using random probability sampling, removing any bias from 

self-selection. Second, the questions on COVID and trust in different levels of government were asked as 

supplementary questions in a survey that was about the relatively politically uncontentious matter of urban 

governance and city use during COVID. Third, though Russia has long had electoral authoritarian tendencies and 

non-systemic political opposition has been marginalized, it is only since the start of the war in Ukraine that there 



34                Canadian Journal of European and Russian Studies, 16(1) 2022: 29-54 
                      ISSN 2562-8429 

 

In two separate questions, respondents were asked about how effective they thought the federal 

(the president and Russian government) and regional authorities (governor and government of 

the federal subject) had been in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic on a four-point scale 

(very effective, somewhat effective, not very effective, extremely ineffective). In addition, there 

was a battery of questions on people's trust in Russian political institutions as well as their 

interest in politics. Respondents were asked to assess “to what extent [they] trust[ed]” each of 

the institutions on a seven-point ascending scale.   

St. Petersburg and Petrozavodsk are appropriate as case studies for a number of reasons. At 

least on the basis of the official figures, the country’s second city and the Republic of Karelia 

(of which Petrozavodsk is the capital) were two of the top three federal subjects in Russia in 

the relative infection rates per one million of the population.8 The choice of these two cities as 

case studies is also justifiable in their geographic proximity in the Northwestern Federal District 

and the similarity of the epidemiological patterns in this geographical area (Gladkikh et al. 

2022).9   

 

The pandemic: epidemiological and political impacts on the nationwide level 

The COVID-19 pandemic has so far come in five distinct waves across Russia, starting with 

the initial pandemic in the spring of 2020 that led to the first flurry of restrictions on mobility 

(particularly in Moscow), which were eased in time for the popular vote on the constitutional 

changes in June/July 2020. Several further peaks followed, as shown in figure 1. 

In a country as large as Russia, there was inevitably some regional variation in the ebbs and 

flows of the pandemic and its impact on the population. The early reactions to the pandemic 

focused on restrictive measures to create social distancing tailored to local specificities by 

regional governments. While the effects of the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Russia 

were not overwhelming in terms of infection and mortality rates, it brought serious economic 

 
has been a widespread crackdown on dissenting views amongst the general population. Finally, the empirical facts 

from the survey itself (and others like it) indicate that 38 percent of respondents said that they “did not trust” the 

president, and 32 percent said that they “did not approve” of Putin's policies as president. These are higher than 

the numbers who actively voted for a candidate other than Putin in the 2018 presidential election – indicating that 

people are, at best, no more reluctant to admit to dissenting political views in a survey than at the ballot box. 

Moreover, the long-running series of approval ratings of Putin's actions conducted by the same polling agency 

(Levada) shows fluctuations that map clearly onto real political events (for example, falling after the 2011-12 

election protests and the 2018 pension reform and rising after the annexation of Crimea in 2014). In other words, 

at least until the start of the war in Ukraine in 2022, there was evidence that representative surveys reflected trends 

in public opinion, both upwards and downwards.  
8 Based on comparative figures at https://russian-trade.com/coronavirus-russia/?ysclid=lbt5u2rqmq241548499 

(accessed December 18, 2022) compared with official population statistics from the Russian State Statistical 

Agency (Rosstat 2022). St. Petersburg's official total of over 1.5 million confirmed cases from March 2020 to July 

2022 was the highest relative rate of infection of any federal subject, encompassing 28.5 percent of the population. 

The Republic of Karelia, with its capital Petrozavodsk, had a relative infection rate of 22.5 percent of the 

population, placing it third. Since those figures reflect only positive test numbers (and not every ill person is 

tested), it is highly likely that the actual numbers are underreported, as they are in most countries. Nonetheless, 

these verified figures represent the minimum numbers of people who actually contracted COVID-19 or died from 

it and hence still point to the illness as a substantial public health issue. A further important caveat is that there 

were significant question marks over the reliability of Russian infection and death statistics (Dixon 2021; Timonin 

et al. 2021). St. Petersburg's and Karelia's relatively high numbers may be down to better reporting or less 

falsification in these regions than in others. Updated figures beyond July 2022 can be found at https://russian-

trade.com/coronavirus-russia/respublika-kareliya/ and https://russian-trade.com/coronavirus-russia/sankt-

peterburg/. 
9 There is a necessary caveat—applicable in many countries—that the positive case numbers do not necessarily 

represent the exact pattern of infected people due to limited testing. 

about:blank
about:blank
about:blank
about:blank
about:blank


35                Canadian Journal of European and Russian Studies, 16(1) 2022: 29-54 
                      ISSN 2562-8429 

 

hardship. The Russian government was not willing to alleviate this hardship with any serious 

support measures. Macroeconomic stability and security were prioritized as opposed to offering 

large handouts or furloughs, which surely would have been popular with the public. Initial 

polling did not show a particularly impressive gain in approval ratings for the Russian 

government in handling the COVID-19 pandemic (Levada 2021), unlike many other countries, 

which saw substantial (if often short-lived) increases in approval ratings for the incumbent 

governments (Yam et al. 2020). Instead, approval ratings for the Russian president fell from 68 

percent in January 2020 to 59 percent in April 2020, recovering to 69 percent in September 

2020 and fluctuating in the 65-69 percent range from November 2020 to January 2022. Taking 

the 67 percent approval rating from January 2020 as a starting point, approval ratings for 

regional governors, assigned responsibility for the pandemic’s management, declined to 58 

percent by July 2020 but remained around 60-62 percent for the first half of 2021 until falling 

back to the 57-59 range until January 2022 (Levada 2021).   

In the pandemic’s second half, more emphasis was put on mitigating COVID-19 via 

vaccination. Despite being the first country in the world to license a vaccine—and having three 

domestically produced vaccines (GamCovidVak – Sputnik V, Covivak, EpivakCorona) to 

choose from—there was relatively slow vaccine uptake within Russia compared to many 

Western European states (Maleva et al. 2021). Thus, like most other countries around the world, 

Russia introduced anti-COVID measures on epidemiological grounds that simultaneously had 

restrictive effects on civil liberties and damaged the economy (Barceló et al. 2022). 

Surprisingly, however, Russia ended up relaxing restrictions quicker than many other states, 

and did not declare a state of emergency, or return to uniform nationwide lockdowns.  

Interestingly, a year into the pandemic, a comparative poll (Gallup International 2021) showed 

Russia to be in fourth place globally in terms of citizens unwilling to sacrifice their human 

rights to try and prevent the spread of COVID-19 (39 percent) and in second place in 

unwillingness to take a vaccine if it was available (46 percent). The Public Relations 

Development Agency (Kompaniya razvitiya obshchestvennykh svyazei – KROS), which 

prepares the “National Index of Anxiety” four times a year, found that by the last quarter of 

2021, fear of QR-code rules actually displaced COVID-19 as the main concern of Russians 

(KROS 2021). This sentiment, which rejects an invasive state and prefers the private sphere to 

be left intact, was seemingly ignored in measures to force vaccination via employers and bills 

to introduce QR-code legislation in the State Duma in November 2021. The latter provoked 

small-scale protests involving approximately 60-200 people in towns and cities across Russia 

(Lomakina 2021). The authorities ultimately abandoned this more invasive federal legislation, 

showing the limits of the state’s ambition in COVID-19 governance when confronted with signs 

of serious dissent.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

  



36                Canadian Journal of European and Russian Studies, 16(1) 2022: 29-54 
                      ISSN 2562-8429 

 

Figure 1: Daily COVID case numbers 2020-22 

 

Source: World Health Organization, https://COVID19.who.int/data, accessed July 16, 2022. 

The survey was carried out at approximately the mid-point of the overall pandemic cycle in 

June 2021. At the time, just over a year had passed since the initial first wave, and the second 

wave of winter 2020-21 had receded. A few weeks after the survey—in July 2021—there was 

a further outbreak of new infections. Thus, the survey measured satisfaction with the 

authorities’ responses at a point when the initial lockdowns had receded into memory and before 

there was widespread controversy over vaccine mandates or QR-code/COVID passport usage. 

The focus is, therefore, on people’s approval of the authorities’ actions during the first year of 

lockdowns and other sanitary measures. 

Opinion was evenly split at the most basic level on how well the authorities had dealt with the 

COVID-19 pandemic, as Table 1 shows. Only a small number thought that either the federal or 

regional authorities had dealt with the pandemic “very” effectively (16 and 12 percent, 

respectively), but the majority across Russia—just over three-fifths of respondents—thought 

the federal authorities' response has been more effective than ineffective. Only slightly fewer 

thought the same about their regional governments. A Kendall’s tau-b correlation was run to 

determine the relationship between the two variables (assessments of the effectiveness of 

federal and regional authorities, respectively). There was a strong statistically significant 

positive correlation between the perceptions of both levels’ responses (τb = 0.690, p < .001). 

This indicates, preliminarily, that people did not make as much differentiation between the two 

levels of government as initially might have been expected. 

  



37                Canadian Journal of European and Russian Studies, 16(1) 2022: 29-54 
                      ISSN 2562-8429 

 

Table 1: “How do you assess the effectiveness of the federal authorities (President and the 

Russian government) and the regional authorities (governor and government of your 

province / republic / krai /city of federal importance) in the fight against coronavirus?” 

(Percent of respondents, excluding “don’t know”) 

  Federal authorities Regional authorities 

Very effective 16 13 

Rather effective 46 47 

Rather ineffective 25 27 

Very ineffective 13 14 

Total 100 100    
   

N= 2341 2332 

Source: Malmö University/Levada Center Survey 2021, q.17 and q.18. Margin of error +/-3.4 percent at 95% 

confidence interval.  

 

Firstly, the authors disaggregated individual respondents’ views on COVID-19 performances 

of the two levels of government relative to each other.10 Though this did not allow the authors 

to measure the attitudes toward any particular regional government (which will be returned to 

later in the detailed focus on two regions), it gives a general nationwide picture of the 

perceptions about the two levels of government. Overall, the difference is not substantial. In 74 

percent of cases, respondents held the same perception of responses to the COVID-19 pandemic 

of both levels of government.11 

Turning to the hypotheses, the authors found evidence for the first two in table 2: people who 

trusted one level of government more than the other were more inclined to rate the effectiveness 

of that level’s attempts to deal with the pandemic positively relative to the other. In the majority 

of cases, people saw both levels of government as being equally effective and expressed the 

same levels of trust in each. However, amongst the minority that trusted one level of 

government more than the other, a slightly larger proportion of them approved of that level’s 

management of the pandemic more than the other levels.  

  

 
10 The respondents' scores (on a scale of 1 to 4) for the two questions (respectively) about the federal and respective 

regional authorities were subtracted from each other using the formula ‘COVID-Diff’ = q.17 [Federal authorities] 

– q.18 [regional authorities]. The scale was descending, meaning that “1” indicated a high degree of effectiveness 

and “4” the lowest. Negative scores indicate that the federal government was seen as more effective, positive ones 

indicate the opposite. The maximum score is +3 (federal authorities very ineffective and regional authorities very 

effective) and the minimum is -3 (federal authorities very effective and regional authorities very ineffective). For 

question wording, see Table 1. 
11 Of the quarter of the sample who did not share this view, slightly more (16 percent compared with 11 percent) 

thought that the federal authorities had performed better than the regional ones, but the distribution was almost 

normally distributed around a mean just below zero (mean = -0.08 and standard deviation = 0.65). In short, 

perceptions of the two levels did not vary strongly. 



38                Canadian Journal of European and Russian Studies, 16(1) 2022: 29-54 
                      ISSN 2562-8429 

 

Table 2: Assessments of COVID measure effectiveness relative to trust in federal and 

regional governments (percent of respondents, excluding ‘don’t know’) 12 

 Trust  Federal more 

effective 

Both levels 

same 

Regional more 

effective 

Total 

(trust) 

N= 

Trust regional more 9 75 16 100 467 

Same trust in each 14 78 9 100 1182 

Trust federal more 23 68 9 100 512 

      

 Total (effectiveness) 15 75 10 100 2161 

Source: own calculations deriving from Malmö University/Levada Center Survey 2021, q.17 and q.18. Margin of 

error +/-3.4 percent. Correlation between the two variables: τb = 0.134, p < .001 

It should be noted that the authors have hitherto examined the relative levels of trust in the two 

levels of government, not the absolute trust levels. Now, the levels of trust in Russian 

institutions, particularly the federal and regional governments, will be examined.13 Hypotheses 

3 and 4 suggested that approval of the COVID-19 measures of the respective levels of 

government would be positively correlated with trust in those levels of government. At the 

federal level (hypothesis 3), 85 percent of those who trusted the president and 87 percent of 

those who trusted the Russian government thought that the federal authorities had dealt with 

the crisis effectively, including more than a quarter who thought that it had been dealt with 

“very effectively.”14  By contrast, only a minority (31 percent and 38 percent, respectively) of 

those who did not trust these institutions felt positively inclined in their assessments of the 

COVID-19 measures.15  There was a statistically significant positive correlation between the 

levels of trust in the Russian government and satisfaction with the federal government’s 

response (τb = 0.444, p < .001).  

There was a very similar pattern when it came to attitudes toward the regional authorities’ 

COVID-19 measures. Of those that trusted their regional authorities, 84 percent thought that 

their measures dealing with the pandemic had been effective. By contrast, 62 percent of those 

that did not trust the authorities felt that the measures had been ineffective. The relationship 

between trust in the respective regional government and satisfaction with the regional response 

was slightly weaker than for the federal government but still positive and statistically significant 

(τb = 0.386, p < .001). Thus, there is preliminary evidence to suggest that hypotheses 3 and 4 

have some validity: trust in the respective authorities connects with approval for their actions. 

 
12 Trust was measured on a seven-point scale, where “1” represented the lowest level of trust.  
13 On a scale of 1 to 7 (where 1 is the lowest level of trust), the mean scores for seven institutions ranged from 3.0 

(State Duma) to 4.35 (president). The federal and regional governments had mean scores of 3.70 (standard 

deviation of 2.11) and 3.62 (standard deviation of 1.95), respectively. The other institutions were the police, the 

army, and the local authorities, which had means between 3.57 and 3.70.   
14 “Trust” and “distrust” are respectively taken to be points 1-3 and 5-7 of the seven-point ascending trust scale (4 

is considered to indicate neither trust nor distrust). Overall, 38.2 percent and 34.6 percent, respectively, indicated 

“trust” (a score between 5 and 7) in the federal and regional governments, compared with 52.1 percent who trusted 

the president. “Effectively” includes those who considered the authorities' response to be “very effective” or 

“somewhat effective” (points 1 and 2 on a four-point descending scale), while “ineffectively” combines the other 

two categories (“rather ineffective” and “very ineffective,” points 3-4 on the same scale). The “don’t know” 

responses were excluded. 
15 There was a positive Spearman rank correlation (when the differing directions of the scales were accounted for) 

of 0.528 and 0.522, respectively (significant at the p<0.01 level) between assessments of the federal authorities' 

handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and the levels of trust in the president and federal government. The original 

seven-point and four-point scales were used for the correlation coefficient rather than the simplified scales 

mentioned above. 



39                Canadian Journal of European and Russian Studies, 16(1) 2022: 29-54 
                      ISSN 2562-8429 

 

There could, of course, be many other factors that lie behind the public’s approval for 

authorities’ actions on COVID and the authors needed to control for them. To examine this in 

more detail, the authors turn to two multivariate ordinary least squares (OLS) regression 

analyses, one each in which the dependent variables are—respectively—the levels of approval 

of the federal and regional authorities’ actions in dealing with COVID-19.16 A number of 

independent variables are included: 

• Trust in the respective authorities. 

• Efficacy: two questions that ask about the extent to which ordinary people feel they can 
influence the federal and regional authorities (respectively) are included in the models.  

• Frequency of media usage: the authors hypothesize that frequent viewing/reading of 
state media will impact positively on approval for the authorities’ actions regarding the 

pandemic at the respective levels.17  

• Interest in politics: people’s general interest in politics may also be connected to their 
attitudes toward the authorities’ handling of COVID-19 – given that the restrictions 

were not just public health measures but also political decisions. 

• Two measures of economic welfare: size of house/apartment and self-perceived current 
economic situation. The smaller a person’s dwelling (number of rooms), the more likely 

they would arguably have felt the spatially restrictive nature of the self-isolation 

measures. Those in a poorer economic situation may have also suffered more from the 

economic shocks of the pandemic and the disruptions to work.  

• In both models, a range of socio-demographic factors is included as controls – sex, age, 
and education level. The authors can hypothesize that older people—who were more 

objectively vulnerable to serious symptoms or mortality from COVID-19—would have 

been more likely to approve of restrictions put in place to protect public health and that 

better-educated people would have had more understanding of the dynamics of the 

pandemic. 

The full list of variables is provided in Appendix 1 (pg. 53) 

The results are shown in Table 3. For ease of comparison, the models for federal and regional 

governments are presented in a single table. However, they refer to two slightly different models 

regressed to the dependent variables of approval of the authorities’ action at the respective state 

levels. The table lists the standardized beta coefficients from Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) 

multivariate regression analysis. Models 1a and 1b refer to the effectiveness of the federal 

authorities in dealing with COVID-19, and models 2a and 2b use the effectiveness of the 

regional authorities in the respondents’ regions as their dependent variable.  

 
16 The federal government, rather than Putin personally, was formally in charge of the pandemic response, and 

hence it is trust in the government rather than the president that is used as the dependent variable. 
17 As is well documented, the Russian media market is dominated by state-owned or state-loyal television and 

printed outlets (Hutcheson 2018). In the survey, 72 percent of respondents said that they “regularly” or 

“sometimes” watched national state television, and 62 percent said the same about regional television. Newspaper 

readership is much lower (but with slightly more people reading regional rather than national press): only 20 

percent said that they regularly or sometimes read federal newspapers and 24 percent looked at regional press 

(Malmö University/Levada Center Survey 2021, q.27). Whilst the media generally lack the critical role of Western 

media, in circumstances such as during the pandemic, they also serve as semi-official sources of public 

information. 



40                Canadian Journal of European and Russian Studies, 16(1) 2022: 29-54 
                      ISSN 2562-8429 

 

Focusing first on people’s satisfaction with the federal authorities’ COVID-19 measures, there 

are statistically significant relationships between the dependent variables and some of the 

demographic factors. As predicted, older people, people who perceived their families to be 

materially better off, and people who lived in larger dwellings were more likely to regard the 

federal government’s approach to COVID-19 as effective. Interestingly, individuals with lower 

levels of education were slightly more likely to regard the measures as effective, perhaps 

reflecting a less critical examination of the government’s pronouncements on the matter. 

Collectively, however, the coefficient of determination shows that these socio-demographic 

factors account for only 5 percent or so of the variance.  

Once attitudinal questions are added to the model, the model obtains more explanatory power 

(Adj. R2 = 0.308). By far, the biggest predictor of a person’s attitude toward the effectiveness 

of the federal authorities in dealing with COVID-19 was their inherent trust in the federal 

government. The respondent’s sense of efficacy played the next-biggest role. In other words, 

the assessments of the COVID-19 measures were largely related to whether a person expected 

the government to make the right decisions and felt part of the governing system of the country. 

The extent to which a respondent followed state television or used the Internet seems to have 

played little role in their attitudes toward the restrictions, though there is a statistically 

significant (but minimal) correlation between newspaper readership and attitudes to the 

government’s actions. This perhaps indicates that frequent newspaper readers were slightly less 

likely to approve of pandemic restrictions, which may arise from the fact that printed media 

tend to be slightly less indiscriminate than visual media.   

Table 3: OLS regression, predictors of attitudes toward effectiveness of COVID-19 pandemic 

measures (standardized Beta coefficients), all-Russia sample  
Effectiveness of federal 

authorities 

 Effectiveness of 

regional authorities 

 1a 1b  2a 2b 

Adj. R2 0.054 0.308  0.039 0.218 

      

Sex 0.065** 0.010  0.097** 0.046* 

Age 0.150** 0.059**  0.095** 0.040 

Education -0.073** -0.048**  -0.081** -0.063** 

House size 0.025 0.053**  -0.008 0.024 

Family financial situation -0.166** -0.045*  -0.188** -0.084** 

Trust Russian govt 
 

0.430**  
  

Trust regional authorities 
  

 
 

0.394** 

Influence on federal authorities 
 

-0.144**  
  

Influence on regional authorities 
 

   
 

-0.109** 

Interest in politics 
 

0.003  
 

0.067** 

Read federal newspapers 
 

0.047*  
 

  

Read regional newspapers 
  

 
 

-0.041** 

Watches federal TV 
 

-0.138  
 

  

Watches regional TV 
  

 
 

-0.077** 

Uses Internet 
 

0.012  
 

0.031 

Source: own calculations deriving from Malmö University/Levada Center Survey 2021. N=2525. Significance 

levels: *p<0.05; **p<0.01 

 

Turning to the question of what predicts approval of regional authorities’ actions in managing 

the pandemic, a similar pattern emerges. The same (weak) relationship exists between attitudes 

toward pandemic restrictions, age, and financial standing. Once again, levels of trust in the 

regional authorities and perceived influence over them are the largest predictors of whether a 

person thought that their regional government had handled the COVID-19 pandemic 



41                Canadian Journal of European and Russian Studies, 16(1) 2022: 29-54 
                      ISSN 2562-8429 

 

effectively. However, these explain less of the variance for regional than for federal authority 

approval.18  

Taken together, the evidence above indicates that hypotheses 1 to 4 also hold when controlling 

for other factors. Nationwide, there was a significant connection between people’s evaluations 

of the effectiveness of pandemic restrictions and their trust in the authorities. Moreover, those 

who had greater trust in one or the other level of government were more inclined to evaluate 

that level of government’s COVID-19 restrictions more favourably. However, the differences 

in perceptions of responsibility between the two levels were not large – indicating that the 

‘blame displacement’ game perhaps worked, in reality, more like ‘blame diffusion’ (or credit-

sharing): voters regarded both levels of government as being roughly equally responsible for 

dealing with the pandemic. 

 

The regionalization of COVID-19 measures 

Hitherto, the authors of the article have primarily examined the picture of the country as a 

whole. However, as noted earlier, the response to the spread of COVID-19 was strongly 

regionalized, and this article now turns to the sub-national level. Russia covers an eighth of the 

world’s land mass and ranges at one extreme from densely packed metropoles (Moscow has a 

population density of nearly 5000 persons per square kilometre) to remote wilderness 

(Chukotka has only 0.07 persons per square kilometre). It would thus have been surprising if 

the pandemic measures had been uniform across the country. 

How to characterize the range of regional responses? The expert foundation “Petersburg 

Politics” attempted a systematization of early regional pandemic measures, arriving at a rating 

of “virus sovereignty” based on the correlation between the level of COVID-19 transmission 

and the restrictions in regions over the first month of the pandemic (Petersburg Politics 

Foundation 2021) Three groups of regions were identified: (1) a high level of “virus 

sovereignty” – regions in which people’s mobility inside and between regions was limited as 

the regions were practically sealed off (The Republic of Chechnya, Chelyabinsk Province, 

Astrakhan’ Province, the Republic of Karelia); (2) a middle level that included regions in which 

restrictions dealt with regulations of trade or special passes to leave one’s home (Rostov 

Province, Kemerovo Province, St. Petersburg); (3) the lowest level of “virus sovereignty”: 

regions with minimal restrictions such as a self-isolation regime with recommendations not 

to leave the region (Tambov Province, Republic of Udmurtia, Yaroslavl Province). Following 

this rating, it is evident that at least during the first wave of the pandemic, the Republic of 

Karelia had a high level of "virus sovereignty," while St. Petersburg had a middle one. However, 

as the pandemic developed, the very strong restrictions in Karelia were not repeated in future 

waves, while in St. Petersburg, strong restrictions were maintained for a long period of time. 

Notwithstanding the strong parallels when it came to the epidemiological side of the pandemic, 

the public policy response differed. During the first wave of the pandemic in St. Petersburg, 

initial measures were similar to those taken in Moscow and most regions of the country: 

students in schools and kindergartens were allowed to choose whether or not to physically 

attend (they were later transferred to an online format); mass events (initially containing over 

1,000 attendees), visits to entertainment and shopping centers, bars and restaurants were 

 
18 Interestingly, there was a small but statistically significant effect from following regional television – possibly 

accruing from the fact that regional news tended to focus more on concrete restrictions in particular places rather 

than the more general macro-level COVID-19 news in the national media. 



42                Canadian Journal of European and Russian Studies, 16(1) 2022: 29-54 
                      ISSN 2562-8429 

 

banned.19 In Petrozavodsk’s first wave, a number of restrictions were also adopted against the 

rapid spread of the new infection, such as suspending public transport, tourist activities, and 

enforcing a lockdown and tightening controls on entry to the region.  

By the summer of 2020, restrictions were gradually eased in both St. Petersburg and 

Petrozavodsk. From May 11 onwards, restrictions were relaxed in Petrozavodsk in preparation 

for the nationwide vote on constitutional amendments that was held from June 25 to July 1. The 

only recommendations remaining were the wearing of masks indoors, sanitizing public spaces, 

and maintaining social distance. However, no control over the observance of these 

recommendations was implemented. In St. Petersburg, some of the measures were cancelled by 

the end of June; the majority of enterprises were able to return to work as long as they complied 

with the restrictions, such as limits on the number of customers inside of a business and the 

maintenance of at least 1.5-metre distance between the customers. At the same time, the city 

authorities organized special events dedicated to the 75th anniversary of the end of the Great 

Patriotic War, despite the existing ban on mass events (Government of St. Petersburg 2020). 

By contrast with Karelia, the most serious restrictions were imposed in St. Petersburg during 

the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in the fall of 2020 (Postanovlenie 2020b). These 

restrictions mostly concerned restaurants and bars, which were prohibited from operating after 

10:00 pm. At the end of November 2020, the authorities closed all cultural and entertainment 

institutions. Also, from December 30th, 2020 to January 3, 2021 all restaurants, bars, and 

cultural and entertainment establishments were ordered to be shut down. Such harsh measures 

caused discontent among entrepreneurs, who declared their intention to ignore the announced 

requirements to save their businesses. A "Map of Resistance" was organized, on which the 

restaurants and bars that ignored the restrictions were marked (Mingazov 2021).    

It is noteworthy that the authorities in Petrozavodsk did not return to restrictions in the second 

or third waves of the pandemic. Despite the significant increase in the number of cases during 

the fall COVID-19 wave of 2020 and the summer and fall waves of 2021, the only major 

closures thereafter related to a return to remote learning for students.20 After the introduction 

of the vaccine in the winter of 2021, the authorities focused on mass vaccination efforts. 

Collective immunity passports were developed for organizations that had a minimum of 60 

percent of employees who were vaccinated. Such a passport allowed enterprises to keep 

working, regardless of the COVID-19 epidemiological situation (Rasporyazhenie 2021, Art. 

8.6). 

Meanwhile, in St. Petersburg, the local government demanded that state and municipal 

organizations achieve 65 percent vaccination rates among their employees, with the eventual 

goal of reaching 100 percent by September 1, 2021. Those who refused to be vaccinated for 

reasons other than medical necessity were subject to various penalties, up to and including 

suspension without salary (Postanovlenie 2021a). In the fall of 2021, during the next wave of 

the pandemic, St. Petersburg authorities introduced mandatory QR-code verification while 

visiting any public places. In late October, the authorities reinstated several of the restrictions 

that had existed in the spring of 2020 (Postanovlenie 2021b). 

  

 
19 Among the measures of the St. Petersburg authorities were the prohibition on visiting parks, squares, 

playgrounds, and religious institutions. Failure to comply with this requirement brought a fine of 3,000 roubles 

(approximately 37 euros at the exchange rate in the spring of 2020) (Postanovlenie 2020a). 
20  For COVID-19 statistics in Karelia during the whole pandemic, see Gogov.ru (2022). 



43                Canadian Journal of European and Russian Studies, 16(1) 2022: 29-54 
                      ISSN 2562-8429 

 

Figure 2: Number of positive cases per 100,000 people (seven-day retrospective rolling 

average), St. Petersburg and Karelia. 

 

Source: authors’ own recalculations based on raw data at https://russian-trade.com/coronavirus-russia/respublika-

kareliya/ and https://russian-trade.com/coronavirus-russia/sankt-peterburg/  

Though a cross-sectional analysis of the levels of restrictions in every region is not possible, 

the authors can hypothesize that, in regions with less restrictive regimes, there should have been 

greater satisfaction with the handling of the pandemic than in regions where the restrictions 

were more extensive. All other things being equal, the authors expected to see more approval 

of the authorities’ actions in Petrozavodsk than in St. Petersburg.  

 

Assessing the public response to regional restrictions 

The differential trajectories of the two case studies gave the authors a chance to re-examine the 

hypotheses discussed in the all-Russian example with a more regional focus. In short, though 

the path of transmission was fairly similar in St. Petersburg and Petrozavodsk, the trajectories 

of the restrictions differed. Taken together, the authors could, therefore, expect that the residents 

of Russia’s second city may have been less satisfied with the authorities’ response to the 

COVID-19 pandemic by the summer of 2021 than those in the Karelian capital. This 

expectation was made on the basis that the residents of Petrozavodsk had been subjected to 

fewer restrictions on their daily life for most of the pandemic, and that this difference would 

primarily manifest itself in the attitudes to the regional authorities’ responses (which differed) 

rather than the federal rules (which were uniform across the country). The counter-hypothesis 

would be that the public would be more satisfied with the more restrictive regimes on the basis 

that they may feel that the authorities were taking greater measures to protect them. 

The aforementioned national representative survey contained deepened representative samples 

in the two case study cities (N=300 in each location). It is thus possible to examine them against 



44                Canadian Journal of European and Russian Studies, 16(1) 2022: 29-54 
                      ISSN 2562-8429 

 

the background of the all-Russian picture. As Table 4 shows, the people of Petrozavodsk (where 

measures were slightly less restrictive after the initial phase) displayed higher levels of 

satisfaction with the authorities’ responses than the residents of St. Petersburg (where there 

were several more lockdowns and closures). In both cases, people approved of the federal 

authorities more than the regional ones. 

Overall, the number of people who thought the federal authorities’ actions had been effective 

was roughly the same – 57 percent in St. Petersburg and 59 percent in Petrozavodsk, albeit with 

a higher proportion of residents in Petrozavodsk thinking that the government’s response had 

been “very” effective. There was a slightly larger difference in attitudes toward the regional 

governments’ responses. Only 8 percent considered the St. Petersburg city authorities to have 

handled the crisis “very effectively,” compared with 17 percent of Petrozavodsk residents. At 

the other end of the spectrum, 49 percent of St. Petersburg residents (compared with 44 percent 

in Petrozavodsk) considered the response to have been “ineffective” to a greater or lesser extent. 

The mean values are not significantly different from each other. In both cases, approval ratings 

of the authorities’ actions were slightly lower than in the Russian Federation as a whole – 

though the margin of error is slightly larger due to the smaller sample size. Notwithstanding the 

more vocal opposition to some of the measures in St. Petersburg, the more restrictive measures 

appear to have made only a small difference to the approval of the authorities’ actions. 

Table 4: “How do you assess the effectiveness of the federal authorities (president and the 

Russian government) and the regional authorities (head of the republic and government of 

the Republic of Karelia/ mayor and city government of St. Petersburg, respectively) in the 

fight against coronavirus?” (percent of respondents, excluding “don’t know”) 

    Petrozavodsk   St. Petersburg 

    Federal Regional   Federal Regional 

Very effective  22 17  12 8 

Rather effective  37 39  45 43 

Rather ineffective  29 28  24 30 

Very ineffective  12 16  19 19 

Total  100 100  100 100        
       

N=   259 254   273 270 

       

Source: Malmö University/Levada Center Survey 2021, q.17 and q.18 (regional extended samples only) 

 

The authors replicate the models above for the two case studies, in order to explore whether 

the levels of trust in the regional government and the feelings of efficacy were the main 

contributors toward the public’s support or otherwise for the respective regional authorities’ 

COVID-19 actions.  
  



45                Canadian Journal of European and Russian Studies, 16(1) 2022: 29-54 
                      ISSN 2562-8429 

 

Table 5: OLS regression, predictors of attitudes toward effectiveness of COVID-19 measures 

on the part of regional authorities (standardized Beta coefficients), region-specific samples  
Petrozavodsk 

 
 St. Petersburg 

 2a 2b  2a 2b 

Adj.R2 0.048 0.237  0.039 0.218 

Sex 0.040 0.003  -0.007 0.003 

Age 0.238** 0.194*  0.216** 0.218** 

Education -0.106 -0.107  -0.135* -0.121 

House size 0.060 0.060  -0.025 0.020 

Family financial situation -0.076 0.031  -0.132* -0.085 

Trust regional authorities 
 

0.369**  
 

0.422** 

Influence on regional authorities 
 

-0.185**  
 

-0.064 

Political interest 
 

0.029  
 

0.076 

Reads regional newspapers 
 

-0.014  
 

0.016 

Watches regional TV 
 

-0.073  
 

-0.034 

Uses Internet 
 

0.008  
 

-0.012 

 

The results in Table 5 from Petrozavodsk and St. Petersburg indicate a slightly different picture 

from the national one. Though trust in the relevant authorities remains the main significant 

predictor of a person’s attitudes toward the pandemic, age has a much stronger effect as a 

significant predictive variable in St. Petersburg and Petrozavodsk.   

This perhaps indicates that in densely populated cities, rather than the smaller towns in which 

many Russians live, older people were more conscious of the risks associated with COVID-19. 

Around 80-85 percent of the Russian COVID-19-related deaths in the first year of the pandemic 

occurred amongst those over 60 (Bashkatova 2021) and there is evidence that this may have 

played a role. Re-running the regression analysis only for cities with a population of over 

100,000 inhabitants indicated that age was a significant predictor of support for the authorities 

(older people were more likely to approve) at the p<0.01 level, whereas it was not so for rural 

areas.  This gives a preliminary indication, which could be the subject of future research, that 

older people in densely populated areas may have been more aware of (or afraid of) the risks 

arising from COVID-19 and hence more supportive of the authorities’ attempts to combat it. 

There is one further difference between St. Petersburg and Petrozavodsk: the extent to which 

people’s sense of efficacy played a role in conditioning their views on COVID-19. This variable 

is absent in the St. Petersburg case, which, as seen above, had more stringent restrictions for a 

longer period and in which there was some resistance to the restrictions around the time of New 

Year’s and Christmas of 2020-21. Again, this perhaps gives a tentative indication that the public 

felt less able to influence the situation in St. Petersburg, where there were strict protocols put 

in place by the municipal authorities, than under the more lenient restrictions in Petrozavodsk. 

However, the explanatory factors between the two cases remain fairly similar. Trust in the 

authorities remains the overwhelming explanatory factor for supporting the pandemic measures 

in both cases – giving further evidence that there was a connection between generalized political 

trust and the perceived legitimacy of the response to the pandemic. 

Conclusions 

Much analysis of COVID-19 pandemic governance in Russia, be it in the media or 

academic/expert views, has focused on the most contradictory, dysfunctional, and negative 



46                Canadian Journal of European and Russian Studies, 16(1) 2022: 29-54 
                      ISSN 2562-8429 

 

elements: Putin’s cynical ‘blame game,’ using the façade of decentralization and preparing 

regional governors as ‘fall guys’; the chaotic interaction between competing institutions in 

pandemic governance; the manipulation of COVID-19 mortality statistics and state media 

propaganda’s twisting of reality; the failure to provide economic support despite huge financial 

reserves; and the bombastic vaccine diplomacy showcased at a time when low vaccination 

uptake at home made Russia vulnerable to new waves of the pandemic.  

Yet, our findings suggest the outright majority inside Russia do not see things in such a negative 

light. Rather than identifying a ‘blame game’ that was detrimental to Russia, it seems more 

natural to see ‘blame diffusion’ (or even ‘credit diffusion’) across the political system. In other 

words, many saw the various levels of governance as marching in unity according to one plan. 

The president and the governors were perceived as one team, albeit with Putin as the boss. This 

majority view was based on the relatively high levels of trust in the Russian state and the 

president as a leader. A minority (ranging between 15-30 percent) had lower trust in state 

institutions and more critical views of the president; this minority also took a more critical view 

of how the COVID-19 pandemic was handled, both by federal and regional authorities. This 

suggests regional authorities were broadly considered legitimate or illegitimate in accordance 

with how far the president is seen as such. 

The findings indicate that although different regions took different approaches to deal with the 

public health crisis, the public did not necessarily perceive their actions as such. Returning to 

the broader question of Russia’s regime type, the findings indicate that the ‘social contract’ of 

post-Soviet Russia remained an important explanatory factor, although there is a need for more 

qualitative verification of these attitudes. There was a strong connection between generalized 

trust in the authorities and how much the public approved of the restrictions. The authors of the 

article can speculate that this is because the public saw the state’s role as one that ensured their 

safety rather than—as more oppositionist-minded people with less trust in the authorities might 

have regarded them—as measures that were tainted by association to authoritarian 

misgovernance, corruption, pompous patriotic rhetoric, or straightforward propaganda. 

A secondary factor was a sense of efficacy – indicating that people who felt that they had some 

influence over the instruments of the state were also more likely to approve of its actions at 

both the federal and the regional level. This again highlights the point that segments of Russian 

society were more confident in the state’s basic abilities, accepted the state’s claims more often 

than not, and saw their own role as citizens in more positive terms. Such attitudes were not 

obviously shaken by the adversities of the COVID-19 pandemic and reflect the core support 

base of the Russian political system.  

Acknowledgements 

This work was completed with the assistance of a grant from the Swedish International Centre 

for Local Democracy (ICLD). 

The work was also financed by NAWA (the Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange) 

as part of the Ulam Programme under the proposal number: PPN/ULM/2020/1/00081  



47                Canadian Journal of European and Russian Studies, 16(1) 2022: 29-54 
                      ISSN 2562-8429 

 

REFERENCES  

Arukwe, Nnanna Onuoha. 2022. “COVID-19 Pandemic in Africa, ‘Copy-and-Paste’ Policies, 

and the Biomedical Hegemony of ‘Cure.’” Journal of Black Studies, 53 (4): 385-410. 

https://doi.org/10.1177/00219347221082327.  

Åslund, Anders. 2020. “Responses to the COVID-19 crisis in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus.” 

Eurasian Geography and Economics 61 (4-5): 532-545. https://doi.org 

/10.1080/15387216.2020.1778499” https://doi.org /10.1080/15387216.2020.1778499. 

Barceló, Joan, Robert Kubinec, Cindy Cheng, Tiril Høye Rahn, and Luca Messerschmidt. 2022. 

“Windows of Repression: Using COVID-19 Policies Against Political Dissidents?” 

Journal of Peace Research 59 (1): 73-89. https://doi.org/10.1177/00223433211062389" 

https://doi.org/10.1177/00223433211062389. 

Bashkatova, Anastasia. 2021. “Pozhilyye rossiyane umirayut v uskorennom tempe” [Elderly 

Russians are dying at a faster rate]. Nezavisimaya Gazeta, September 19, 2021. Accessed 

December 16, 2022. https://www.ng.ru/economics/2021-09-19/1_8255_russians.html.  

Blackburn, Matthew, and Bo Petersson. 2021. “Parade, Plebiscite, Pandemic: Legitimation 

Efforts in Putin’s Fourth Term.” Post-Soviet Affairs 38 (4): 293-311. 

https://doi.org/10.1080/1060586X.2021.2020575.  

Blakkisrud, Helge. 2015. “Governing the Governors: Legitimacy vs. Control in the Reform of 

the Russian Regional Executive.” East European Politics 31 (1): 104-21. 

https://doi.org/10.1080/21599165.2014.956925.  

Burkhardt, Fabian. 2020. “Executive Politics in Russia in Times of the Pandemic: Shifting 

Responsibility and Blame as a Technology of Governance.” PEX 28. Accessed November 

13, 2021. https://pex-network.com/2020/05/28/executive-politics-in-russia-in-times-of-

the-pandemic-shifting-responsibility-and-blame-as-a-technology-of-governance.  

Busygina, Irina. 2016. "Putin's Russia: The State-Building Strategy." Russian Politics 1 (1): 70-

94. https://doi.org/10.1163/24518921-00101004.  

Busygina, Irina. 2019. “Are Post-Soviet Leaders Doomed to be Populist? A Comparative 

Analysis of Putin and Nazarbayev.” European Politics and Society 20 (4): 502-518. 

https://doi.org/10.1163/24518921-00101004.  

Busygina, Irina and Filippov, M. 2021. “COVID and Federal Relations in Russia.” Russian 

Politics, 6 (3), 279–300. https://doi.org/10.30965/24518921-00603001 

Chattopadhyay, Rupak, Felix Knüpling, Diana Chebenova, Liam Whittington, and Phillip 

Gonzalez. 2022. Federalism and the Response to COVID-19. New York: Routledge. 

Dixon, Robyn. 2021. “In Russia, Experts are Challenging Official Pandemic Figures as Too 

Low. They Refuse to be Silenced.” Washington Post, October 17, 2021. Accessed 

December 16, 2022. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/russia-covid-count-

fake-statistics/2021/10/16/b9d47058-277f-11ec-8739-5cb6aba30a30_story.html.  

 

about:blank
about:blank
about:blank
about:blank
about:blank
about:blank
about:blank
about:blank
about:blank
about:blank


48                Canadian Journal of European and Russian Studies, 16(1) 2022: 29-54 
                      ISSN 2562-8429 

 

Forbes, 2020. “V Sankt-Peterburge poyavilas' ‘Karta soprotivleniya’ vystupayushchikh protiv 

kovidnykh ogranicheniy barov” [A “Map of Resistance” of bars fighting against 

coronavirus restrictions has appeared in St. Petersburg]. December 8, 2020. Accessed 

December 13, 2022. https://www.forbes.ru/newsroom/biznes/415697-v-sankt-

peterburge-poyavilas-karta-soprotivleniya-vystupayushchih-protiv.   

Frye, T. 2021. Weak Strongman: The Limits of Power in Putin’s Russia. Princeton: Princeton 

University Press. 

Gallup International. 2021 “Almost a Year with Pandemic: People around Globe Still 

Mobilized against the Threat, with Hope for Vaccines. Yet Potential Problems Become 

More Significant." January 21, 2021. Accessed December 16, 2022. https://www.gallup-

international.bg/en/44307/a-year-of-global-coronavirus-pandemic-global-survey-

vaccines-attitudes/.  

Gogov.ru. 2022. “Statistika COVID-19 v Karelii za vse vremya” [Total COVID-19 statistics in 

Karelia]. Accessed December 13, 2022. https://gogov.ru/covid-19/krl#data.   

Gladkikh, Anna, Vladimir Dedkov, Alena Sharova, Ekaterina Klyuchnikova, Valeriya 

Sbarzaglia, Olga Kanaeva, Tatyana Arbuzova, Nadezhda Tsyganova, Anna Popova, 

Edward Ramsay, and Areg Totolian. 2022. “Epidemiological Features of COVID-19 in 

Northwest Russia in 2021.” Viruses 14 (5) https://doi.org/10.3390/v14050931. 

Golosov, Grigorii V. 2016. "Why and How Electoral Systems Matter in 

Autocracies." Australian Journal of Political Science 51 (3): 367-385. 

https://doi.org/10.1080/10361146.2016.1182617. 

Government of St. Petersburg. 2020. “Na Dvortsovoi ploshchadi proshel parad v chest' 75-y 

godovshchiny Pobedy v Velikoi Otechestvennoi voine” [Palace Square hosted a parade 

dedicated to the 75th anniversary of the Great Patriotic War]. Accessed December 16, 

2022. https://www.gov.spb.ru/press/governor/191136/.  

Greene, Samuel A. 2014. Moscow in Movement: Power and Opposition in Putin's Russia. 

Stanford: Stanford University Press. 

Greene, Samuel A., and Graeme B. Robertson. 2019. Putin v. The People. The Perilous 

Politics of a Divided Russia. New Haven: Yale University Press. 

Hutcheson, Derek S. 2018. Parliamentary Elections in Russia: A Quarter-Century of 

Multiparty Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press/British Academy. 

Ivanov, Yevgeny, and Nikolay Petrov. 2021. “Transition to a New Model of Russian 

Governors’ Appointments as a Reflection of Regime Transformation.” Russian Politics 

6 (2): 153–84. https://doi.org/10.30965/24518921-00602001.  

Izvestiya. 2021. “Putin rasskazal o svoem zdorovi’e” [Putin talked about his health]. October 

11, 2021. Accessed December 12, 2022. https://iz.ru/1234021/2021-10-11/putin-

rasskazal-o-svoem-zdorove.  

Kompaniya razvitiya obshchestvennykh svyazei (KROS). 2021. “National’nyi indeks 

trevozhnostei” [National Index of Anxiety]. Accessed December 16, 2022. 

about:blank
about:blank
about:blank
about:blank
about:blank
about:blank#data
about:blank
about:blank
about:blank


49                Canadian Journal of European and Russian Studies, 16(1) 2022: 29-54 
                      ISSN 2562-8429 

 

https://www.cros.ru/upload/iblock/ccc/kh2iezq12ene2ugf1m5t34ibmvqcdx2y/Index_rep

ort_Q4_2022.pdf .  

Kofanov, Dmitrii, Vladimir Kozlov, Alexander Libman, and Nikita Zakharov. 2022. 

“Encouraged to Cheat? Federal Incentives and Career Concerns at the Sub-national Level 

as Determinants of Under-Reporting of COVID-19 Mortality in Russia.” British Journal 

of Political Science: 1-26. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007123422000527.  

Levada 2021. “Doverie politikam, odobrenie institutov i polozhenie del v strane” [Trust in 

politicians, approval of institutions and assessment of the situation in the country]. 

Accessed December 12, 2022. https://www.levada.ru/2021/07/30/doverie-politikam-

odobrenie-institutov-i-polozhenie-del-v-strane-4/.  

Levada. 2022. “Odobrenie deyatel’nosti Vladimira Putina” [Approval of Vladimir Putin’s 

Work]. Accessed June 13, 2022. https://www.levada.ru/indikatory/.  

Loftus, Suzanne. 2022. “Legitimacy and Societal Consent under Putin’s Leadership: State 

Capacity and National Identity.” Russian Politics 1 (7): 1-30. https://doi.org/

10.30965/24518921-00604010. 

Lomakina, Yana. 2021. “V Voronezhe, Yekaterinburge, Irkutske i drugikh gorodakh Rossii 

proshli mitingi protivnikov QR-kodov” [Voronezh, Ekaterinburg, and Irkutsk had 

protests of those opposed to QR codes]. TJournal, November 15, 2021. Accessed 

December 16, 2022. https://tjournal.ru/news/475351-v-voronezhe-ekaterinburge-

irkutske-i-drugih-gorodah-rossii-proshli-mitingi-protivnikov-qr-kodov-glavnoe.   

Maleva, Tatiana M., Marina A. Kartseva, and Sophia V. Korzhuk. 2021. “Socio-Demographic 

Determinants of COVID-19 Vaccine Uptake in Russia in the Context of Mandatory 

Vaccination of Employees.” Naselenie i ekonomika 5 (4): 30–49. https://doi.org/10.3897/

popecon.5.e77832.  

Malmö University/Levada Center Survey. 2021. “Vash gorod, vashe vliyanie, vash golos” 

[Your city, your influence, your voice], national representative survey, Russian 

Federation, N=2525. Fieldwork conducted through face-to-face interviews in a 

representative set of 97 urban and 40 rural locations from 17-28 June 2021. 

Malinova, Olga. 2020. “Framing the Collective Memory of the 1990s as a Legitimation Tool 

for Putin’s Regime.” Problems of Post-Communism 68 (5): 429-441, DOI: 

https://doi.org/10.1080/10758216.2020.1752732.  

Mao, Yexin. 2021. “Political institutions, state capacity, and crisis management: A comparison 

of China and South Korea.” International Political Science Review 42 (3): 316-332. 

https://doi.org/10.1177/0192512121994026.  

Mingazov, Sergei. 2020. “V Sankt-Peterburge poyavilas' ‘Karta soprotivleniya’ 

vystupayushchikh protiv kovidnykh ogranicheniy barov” [In St. Petersburg, there is 

now a ‘resistance card’ used by those opposed to COVID restrictions]. Accessed 

December 16, 2021.  https://www.forbes.ru/newsroom/biznes/415697-v-sankt-

peterburge-poyavilas-karta-soprotivleniya-vystupayushchih-protiv.  

about:blank
about:blank
about:blank
about:blank
about:blank
about:blank
about:blank
about:blank
about:blank
about:blank
about:blank
about:blank
about:blank
about:blank
about:blank


50                Canadian Journal of European and Russian Studies, 16(1) 2022: 29-54 
                      ISSN 2562-8429 

 

Nelson, M.A. 2021. “The timing and aggressiveness of early government response to COVID-

19: Political systems, societal culture, and more.” World Development, 146, 105550. 

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2021.105550.   

Newton, Kenneth. 1999. “Social and Political Trust in Established Democracies.” In Critical 

Citizens: Global Support for Democratic Government, edited by Pippa Norris, 169-187. 

Oxford: Oxford University Press. 

Newton, Kenneth, Dietlind Stolle, and Sonja Zmerli. 2017. “Social and Political Trust.” In The 

Oxford Handbook of Social and Political Trust, edited by Eric M. Uslaner, 37-56. Oxford: 

Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190274801.013.20.  

Petersburg Politics Foundation. 2020. “Reiting Fonda ’Peterburgskaya politika’ za mart 2020 

goda” [The rating of Petersburg Politics Foundation for March 2020. Accessed December 

16, 2022. https://fpp.spb.ru/fpp-rating-2020-03#_Toc37150664.  

Petersson, Bo. 2021. The Putin Predicament: Problems of Legitimation and Succession in 

Russia. Stuttgart: Ibidem Verlag. 

Postanovlenie. 2020a. “Postanovlenie Pravitel’stva Sankt Peterburga ot 3.04.2020 №182 

[Regulation of St. Petersburg Government]. Official Internet Portal of Legal Information. 

Accessed 13th December 2022. http://publication.pravo.gov.ru/Document/View/

7800202004070013.  

Postanovlenie. 2020b. “Postanovlenie Pravitel’stva Sankt Peterburga ot 22.10.2020 № 863” 

[Regulation of St. Petersburg Government]. St. Petersburg Legislation. Accessed 

December 13, 2022. 

https://www.gov.spb.ru/law/d?nd=566068380&prevdoc=564437085&point=mark=0AE

IPTM19BSCAQ0PL55SC000002D1R93V3S3VVVVVU31LUVK50AEIPT8.  

Postanovlenie, 2021a. “Postanovlenie Pravitel’stva Sankt Peterburga ot 30.06.2021 №549” 

[Regulation of St. Petersburg Government]. St. Petersburg Legislation. Accessed 

December 13, 2022. 

https://www.gov.spb.ru/law/d?nd=607857187&prevdoc=564437085&point=mark=06F

1J041MKTNF4185GQ0G000000D24N4UDQ3M3339G121L1SF1P2DT10.  

Postanovlenie, 2021b. “Postanovlenie Pravitel’stva Sankt Peterburga ot 18.10.2021 №766” 

[Regulation of St. Petersburg Government]. St. Petersburg Legislation. Accessed 

December 13, 2022. 

https://www.gov.spb.ru/law/d?nd=608967048&prevdoc=564437085&point=mark=06F

1J041MKTNF4185GQ0G000000D24N4UDQ3M3339G121L1SF1P2DT10.  

Presidential Decree. 2020. “Ukaz Prezidenta Rossiiskoi Federatsii ot 02.04.2020 №239 "O 

merakh po obespecheniyu sanitarno-epidemiologicheskogo blagopoluchiya naseleniya na 

territorii Rossiiskoi Federatsii v svyazi s rasprostraneniyem novoi koronavirusnoi 

infektsii (COVID-19)” [Decree on measures to ensure the sanitary and epidemiological 

well-being of the population in connection with the spread of coronavirus infection]”. 

Official Internet Portal of Legal Information. Accessed May 16, 2022. 

http://ips.pravo.gov.ru:8080/default.aspx?pn=0001202004020025.  

about:blank
about:blank
about:blank#_Toc37150664
about:blank
about:blank
about:blank
about:blank
about:blank
about:blank
about:blank
about:blank


51                Canadian Journal of European and Russian Studies, 16(1) 2022: 29-54 
                      ISSN 2562-8429 

 

Rasporyazhenie, 2021. “Rasporyazhenie Glavy Respubliki Karelia ot 18.06.2021 №342-r”  

[Decree of the Head of the Republic of Karelia]. Accessed December 13, 2022.  

https://gov.karelia.ru/upload/iblock/f1f/redaktsiya_ot_18_iyunya_342_r.pdf.    

Robinson, Darrel, and Marcus Tannenberg. 2019. “Self-censorship of Regime Support in 

Authoritarian States: Evidence from List Experiments in China.” Research & Politics 6 

(3): 1-9. https://doi.org/10.1177/2053168019856449.  

Rosstat. 2022. “Regiony Rossii: sotsial’no-ekonomicheskie pokazateli” [Regions of Russia: 

Socio-economic indicators]. Russian Federal State Statistical Agency. Accessed 

December 18, 2022. https://rosstat.gov.ru/folder/210/document/13204 

Sharafutdinova, Gulnaz. 2022. “Is Politics Always the Same? Response to Comments on The 

Red Mirror: Putin’s Leadership and Russia’s Insecure Identity.” Nationalities Papers 50 

(3): 624-627. https://doi.org/10.1017/nps.2021.98.  

Shirikov, Anton, Valeriia Umanets, and Yoshiko Herrera. 2023. “Russia: Muddling Through 

Populism and the Pandemic.” In Populists and the Pandemic: How Populists Around the 

World Responded to COVID-19, edited by Nils Ringe and Lucio Rennó, 173-183. 

London: Routledge. 

Smyth, Regina, Gulnaz Sharafutdinova, Timothy Model, and Aiden Klein. 2020. “The Russian 

Power Vertical and the COVID-19 Challenge: The Trajectories of Regional Responses.” 

PONARS Eurasia, Policy Memo No. 646.  Accessed December 16, 2022. 

https://www.ponarseurasia.org/the-russian-power-vertical-and-the-covid-19-challenge-

the-trajectories-of-regional-responses/. 

Terzyan, Aram. 2021. “Russia and COVID-19: Russian Adaptive Authoritarianism during the 

Pandemic.” Journal of Liberty and International Affairs 7 (3): 345-355. 

https://doi.org/10.47305/JLIA2137345t.  

Timonin, Sergey, Ilya Klimkin, Vladimir M. Shkolnikov, Evgeny Andreev, Martin McKee, and 

David A. Leon. 2021. “Excess Mortality in Russia and its Regions Compared to High 

Income Countries: An Analysis of Monthly Series of 2020.” SSM – Population Health. 

17 (101006): 1-14. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssmph.2021.101006.  

Volkov, Denis, and Andrei Kolesnikov. 2018. “The Perils of Change: Russians’ Mixed Attitude 

Toward Reform.” Carnegie Moscow Center, February 6, 2018. Accessed December 16, 

2022. https://carnegie.ru/2018/02/06/perils-of-change-russians-mixed-attitudes-toward-

reform-pub-75436.  

Yam, Kai Chi, Joshua Conrad Jackson, Christopher M. Barnes, Jenson Lau, Xin Qin, and Hin 

Yeung Lau. 2020. “The rise of COVID-19 cases is associated with support for world 

leaders.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences – PNAS 117 (41): 25429-

25433. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2009252117.   

about:blank
about:blank
about:blank
about:blank
about:blank
about:blank
about:blank
about:blank
about:blank


52                Canadian Journal of European and Russian Studies, 16(1) 2022: 29-54 
                      ISSN 2562-8429 

 

Appendix 1: Variables included in the OLS regression models 

Inclusion in models 

 

Model 1 (federal COVID 

response)/ 

 

Model 2 (regional COVID 

response) 

Dimension Question Scale (Max/Min) 

1 Dependent 

variable 

How do you assess the 

effectiveness of the federal 

authorities in the fight 

against coronavirus? 

4-point ascending (1= 

very ineffective; 4 = 

very effective) 

2 Dependent 

variable 2 

How do you assess the 

effectiveness of the regional 

authorities in the fight 

against coronavirus? 

4-point ascending (1= 

very ineffective; 4 = 

very effective) 

1 Trust To what extent do you trust 

the Russian government? 

7 point ascending (1=do 

not trust at all; 7= full 

trust) 

2  To what extent do you trust 

the regional authorities in 

your region? 

7 point ascending (1=do 

not trust at all; 7= full 

trust) 

1 Efficacy To what extent do you think 

people like you can have a 

direct influence on the 

actions of the federal 

authorities? 

4-point descending (1= 

large extent; 4=not at all) 

2  To what extent do you think 

people like you can have a 

direct influence on the 

actions of the regional 

authorities? 

4-point descending (1= 

large extent; 4 = not at 

all) 

1 & 2 Political interest How interested are you in 

politics? 

4-point descending (1= 

very interested; 4 = not 

at all) 

1 Political 

information 

How often do you  

 

i) Read all-
Russian 

(federal) 

newspapers 

ii) Watch central 
television 

 

4-point descending for 

each measure (1= 

regularly; 4= not at all). 

1 Political 

information 

How often do you  

 

i) Read regional, 
local 

newspapers 

ii) Watch regional, 
local television 

 

4-point descending for 

each measure (1= 

regularly; 4= not at all). 

1 & 2 Political 

information 

How often do you use the 

Internet 

4-point descending (1= 

regularly; 4= not at all). 

1 & 2 Demographic Sex Binary 2-category (1= 

male, 2= female) 

1 & 2  Age 5 ordinal categories, 

ascending (1= 18-29; 10-



53                Canadian Journal of European and Russian Studies, 16(1) 2022: 29-54 
                      ISSN 2562-8429 

 
year brackets up to 5= 

60+) 

1 & 2  Education 6 ordinal categories, 

ascending 

1 & 2  How many rooms in the 

apartment/house where you 

live 

Numerical, ascending. 

1 & 2  How would you assess your 

family's current financial 

situation? 

5-point descending (1= 

very good, 5 = very bad) 

 

  



54                Canadian Journal of European and Russian Studies, 16(1) 2022: 29-54 
                      ISSN 2562-8429 

 

Published by the Centre for European Studies at Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada 

Available online at: https://ojs.library.carleton.ca/index.php/CJERS/index 

 

The Canadian Journal of European and Russian Studies (CJERS – formerly Review of 

European and Russian Affairs) is an open-access electronic academic peer-reviewed journal: 

articles are subject to double-blind peer-review. Topics relate to the European Union, its 

Member States, the former Soviet Union, and Central and Eastern Europe. The journal is 

published by the Centre for European Studies, an associated unit of the Institute of European, 

Russian and Eurasian Studies at Carleton University. 

 

CJERS aims to provide an accessible forum for the promotion and dissemination of high quality 

research and scholarship.  

 

Contact: 

Carleton University 

The Centre for European Studies 

1103 Dunton Tower 

1125 Colonel By Drive 

Ottawa, ON K1S 5B6 

Canada 

E-mail: CJERS@carleton.ca 

 

Creative Commons License 

 
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ 

 

This Working Paper is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial- 

No Derivs 4.0 Unported License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0).  

Articles appearing in this publication may be freely quoted and reproduced, provided the 

source is acknowledged. No use of this publication may be made for resale or other 

commercial purposes. 

 

ISSN: 2562-8429 

© 2019 The Author(s) 

 

about:blank
about:blank
about:blank

