Why do Belarusians agree to stability?

Sociologists will take part in the discussion “what do Belarusians think?” in Vilnius on October 1.  It will be the third discussion organized by the Eastern European Studies Centre (Lithuania) and the Belarusian Research Council.

The current research is called “Social contracts in modern Belarus”. It is dedicated to studying “the contract” between different social groups in Belarus to explain the reason for the social and political stability in the country.

The conditions proving the agreement of the population with the existing political regime were revealed during the first stage of the research conducted by the Belarusian Institute for Strategic Studies (BISS) in 2008-2009. The government and the society have undergone serious political and economic crises since then and the changes affected the informal “social contract”.

Basing on the results of the nation-wide survey and focus groups, BISS has suggested to continue the research this year in order to understand the dynamics of “the social contract” in Belarus.

BISS representative Alyona Artsyomenka will be the main speaker at the discussion. Iryna Tachynskaya (Centre of the Institute for Privatization and Management) and Alyaksandr Sasnou (Independent Institute of Socio-Economic and Political Studies) are among the participants.

Euroradio will present a live broadcast of the discussion starting from 4.30 p.m. until 6.30 p.m.