The 2002 Russian Census: Institutional Reform at Goskomstar

A specialist on Russian political institutions evaluates the performance of Russia's State Statistical Committee (Goskomstat) in preparing and conducting the national census of 2002. Standards drawn from practices in other countries are employed in the evaluation, including the responsiveness of the census to the data priorities of government and society, the reliability and level of non-politicization of data, and the accessibility of collected data. Conclusions are based largely on a systematic analysis of the journal Voprosy statistiki from 1985 to 2003 and on interviews conducted by the author during 2003-2004 with managers of the Census in Goskomstat offices in 11 regions of Russia.