On 1 October, the Eastern Europe Studies Centre (EESC, Lithuania) in association with the Belarus Research Council (BRC) held the third discussion “What Do Belarusians Think: Results of Research of Social Contracts” in Vilnius.
The study “Social Contracts in Contemporary Belarus” centers on the “contract” between various social groups of Belarus and the state and seeks to account for social and political stability in Belarus. The study was presented by BISS analyst Alena Artsiomenka.
Taking part in the discussion were Aleksandr Sosnov with the Independent Institute for Socio-Economic and Political Studies (IISEPS) and Irina Tochitskaya with the Research Center of the Institute for Privatization and Management (IPM).
During the first phase of the study back in 2008-2009, BISS revealed the circumstances that accounted for the consent of the Belarusians to the existing political regime and made part of the unwritten “social contract” between the state and its citizens. Since then, Belarusian society and the Belarusian authorities have gone through a major political and economic crisis, which had a profound impact on the informal “social contract”.
The event was live streamed by BISS (belinstitute.eu), European Radio for Belarus (euroradio.by), BelarusDigest (belarusdigest.com) and Delfi.ru (ru.delfi.lt) on their websites.
A compilation of most exciting episodes of the discussion will be available on these websites a week after the event.