The Russians Have Been Listening to Us

This thesis shows that there is a correlation between Russians’ perception of the United States and their opinion of democracy. Moreover, it shows that Russians’ perception of the US are, in part, determinative of their opinion of democracy. How and why Russians have formed an association between the US and democracy is also analyzed. This thesis argues that this association was formed because of Russians resilient Soviet identity (including nostalgia), due to social modernization emanating from the US, conditioning via a poor experience with US-associated democracy in the early 1990s, as well as Kremlin and US reinforcement of the US=democracy association.Master of Art