Popular science material by Serhii Dembitskyi, Doctor of Sociological Sciences: “The background of public opinion over the course of the war”

The website of the Institute of Sociology of the NAS of Ukraine has published a popular science material by Serhii Dembitskyi, Doctor of Sociological Sciences, "The background of public opinion over the course of the war"

The changes in public opinion in Ukraine after the beginning of the full-scale invasion by the Russian Federation in 2022 were somewhat paradoxical. Despite the fact that the start of the invasion was the most difficult period of this war for the Ukrainian state, Ukrainians' assessments on social and political questions changed sharply for the better. This applied to many aspects — assessments of the state of the economy, attitudes towards the country's leadership, the importance of a democratic vector of development, and so on.

The “GSR-5” scale was developed in 2020, and from 2021 it was included in the annual sociological monitoring survey “Ukrainian Society”, which the Institute of Sociology of the NAS of Ukraine has been conducting since 1994. The 2021 results showed a pronounced social and political negativism characterising public opinion, while the very next measurement in May 2022 (the data were collected for the Institute free of charge by the Rating Sociological Group) recorded a radical change for the better. The latter fits entirely within the logic of the “rally round the flag” hypothesis.

What follows are the specific results of applying the “GSR-5” scale over the past four years, which will allow you to form your own view of the changes in public opinion during an exhausting war (a description of the surveys is given in the appendix to this material).

The full material is here