Oleksii Antypovych, Rating Group

• At the end of September, a draft law titled “On the Functioning of Subjects of Sociological Activity” was registered in the Verkhovna Rada by MP V. Chudnovskyi from the Yuliia Tymoshenko Bloc. At a minimum, the bill bans the establishment of sociological companies with foreign capital, restricts the right of the media to publish opinion poll data, provides for the creation of a licensing commission under the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Education, and the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, and introduces questionable grounds for revoking the licenses of sociological service providers, among other provisions.
• Assessing the constitutionality of this draft law is the responsibility of the Constitutional Court; assessing the losses for the Ukrainian sociological market due to the exclusion of leading foreign survey technologies and capital is the task of marketers and economists. The duty of sociologists and civil society organizations is to explain to the public what the adoption of such a law would mean for the development of sociology and for freedom of speech in general.
• The author of the bill explains its introduction by arguing that, “for an adequate response by the state to societal demands,” it must “accurately know the moods, priorities, and needs of citizens.” At the same time, it is stated that “sociologists often cannot offer politicians, administrators, and socio-economic managers reliable mechanisms and tested methodologies for the optimal use of public opinion in order to increase the effectiveness of governance.”
• Unfortunately, incompetent managers often blame sociologists for their own failures, even though it is usually managers who misinterpret sociological survey results. Those in power act more wisely when they merely formulate the task for sociological centers, which then use tested methods of analysis and problem-solving and deliver the results “turnkey.”
• Nevertheless, nothing prevents authorities from trusting certain sociological firms (that is, “their own”) while distrusting others (“outsiders”) when making decisions. Power does not want to hear opinions that differ from its own, nor does it want citizens to hear alternative views. Yet it is sociologists, not politicians, whom Chudnovskyi accuses of manipulating public opinion.
• The adoption of this bill therefore creates a threat that authorities will close down undesirable sociological companies, provoke an increase in raider attacks initiated by officials, and drive about two-thirds of the sociological services market into the shadows. Moreover, some sociological actors would be forced to publish distorted survey results merely to bring them into line with the position of those in power. After the adoption of this legal “innovation,” a whole caste of people would emerge, empowered to decide whether survey data are falsified or not, and to pressure the Ministry of Justice to revoke the licenses of unwanted sociological organizations. Most experts interpret these provisions to mean that a single standard of accuracy will be imposed by sociological companies close to the authorities. It is still unclear how the “published margin of error of a sociological forecast” mentioned in the bill would be calculated — by median, by mode across different surveys, or otherwise — but that is not the key issue. What matters is that it would be calculated around the data of “court sociologists.”
• This could mean that whenever a particular political force comes to power, for years we would observe a “consistently high level of its support,” fluctuating only within plus or minus three percent.
• Chudnovskyi explains the ban on establishing sociological companies with mixed Ukrainian-foreign capital (until now independent of the authorities) as follows: “the collection of information about the political and socio-economic life of Ukraine by sociological services can be used (and in fact is used) by foreign intelligence services to create obstacles to the implementation of Ukraine’s national interests, as well as for economic and ideological subversion against our country.”
• But what prevents non-residents from ordering research and receiving results from Ukrainian sociological companies in circumvention of the law? Does this not mean that sociological entities conducting surveys under foreign grants will be subjected to strict surveillance? Will sociological centers now be required to provide confidential information about their clients and research topics to law-enforcement or statistical authorities?
• Terms such as “foreign intelligence services” and “ideological subversion” may sound convincing only to members of parliament when spoken by their colleagues. Experienced sociologists can confidently state that most Ukrainians perceive such notions as belonging to cinema rather than to the work of sociological centers. People are far more inclined to believe that public opinion is manipulated through hourly news broadcasts or television advertising. One can therefore predict that media outlets will become the next targets of inspections and licensing after sociologists.
• One thing is clear: the draft law on subjects of sociological activity is a prelude to a new wave of “temnyky” — informal instructions — for the media and sociological centers. In essence, it is the first test balloon thrown into society to see whether it is ready for the popular slogan of “restoring order,” or whether it is better to postpone such bills for “better times.”
• In my view, journalists, civil society, and my colleagues have no choice but once again to stand up for freedom of speech. Otherwise, the authorities will once again forget what it is and under what conditions citizens have defended it.