Survey of Conflict Prevention and Cooperation 2004

Field works were completed (latest questionnaires entering) on 21 September 2004. Processing (check, codification) were started immediately upon the first questionnaires entering, i.e. since 11 September 2004. The first questionnaires were entered into the database on 14 September 2004.
Quality control included the following stages:

1. Check of correctness of the sampling filled in forms.
2. Check of correctness of respondent's sampling.
3. Check of the correspondence between the number of Kish' card and the number of the sampling form.
4. Check of correctness of the questionnaires filled in.
5. Check of the correspondence between answers and questions in terms of logic.
   Check visits were made from 23 September until 30 September 2004.

After the field works' completion each interviewer, who participated in the questioning, was checked. With this purpose 20% of the conducted interviews were selected, which were presented to the headquarters' as filled out questionnaires. An interview' selection for check was made at a random in the database from interviews, submitted by each interviewer. Addresses, where an interviewer had made mistakes while filling out during questioning, were added to them (there were about 30 such addresses). Interviewers, who worked in other regions, performed check.
If the check's results proved to be positive (the procedure of respondent's or household's sampling was not violated or questionnaire was filled in according to the interview taken etc.), the check of the given interviewer was considered completed. If an interviewer under check made a sampling mistake or falsified the interview, than all the interviews, he had conducted, were subjected to check.

The following violations were discovered:

• In Samarkandksaya oblast in PSU No 32 (the town of Kattakurgan), due to the illness of an interviewer, a supervisor had to urgently replace him with another one, and so an interviewer, who had a bad command of Uzbek language, was performing interviews in Russian. In this connection we decided to send another interviewer so that she interviewed those respondents, who either did not speak Russian, or spoke it no good, or understood poorly at least one of the questionnaire's item. Such respondents were three in number and another interviewer questioned them.
• In the Republic of Karakalpakstan one case of the respondent's replacement was found out and the checking person conducted a repeated questioning.
• In Navoiyskaya oblast two cases of the respondent's replacement were found out, but it was discovered during the questionnaire's hand over and the interviewer himself performed a repeated questioning. No remarks were made during check regarding his other addressees.
• In Bukharskaya oblast 1 case of the respondent's replacement was found out, and the checking person conducted a repeated questioning.
• In Andijanskaya and Ferghanskaya oblast 1 case of the respondent's replacement per each were discovered as well, and an interviewer in charge of check conducted a repeated questioning.
• In Surhandar'yinskaya oblast - 2 cases.
• And in Tashkentskaya oblast -2 cases.
  Totally 10 respondents' replacement were exposed, where they were re-questioned by other interviewers. It should be noticed that these cases of respondents' replacement were not deliberate, but owing to a technical error of the interviewer either at the respondent's sampling (3 cases) or at compiling a household members list (breach of men and women's age priority).
  In the course of check visits one case of an interview's falsification was found out (PSU No 28), i.e. "non-visit". The interviewee was a 97 years old woman, but during check she said that "the interviewer came, but asked only just about 20 questions and left". During check a repeated questioning was made at this address too.

We have carried out check visits to these households as well, where for whatever grounds an interview had not been conducted. In the course of checks many cases were revealed when inhabitants either do not agree to be interviewed or they do not live in their apartments. Many apartments according to explanations are empty as they are for instance let to students, who have gone to gather cotton, or they are purchased as real estate etc. Here are concrete examples of such checks:

The town of Andijan

• In PSU No6, neighbours - household 131 - said that a young family moved in 2-3 days ago, but they did not live there yet.
• In household 130 - "That period I had lived with my son in another place (another district). The neighbours told me that somebody came and asked for us".
• In household 129 - "Yes, they came, but we did not want to converse, as I have a sick 75-year old mother".

The town of Namangan

• In household 593 - "Students live there, but presently they are at cotton gathering works". Neighbours.
• In household 591 - "We have bought it recently, and now making repair". " The old owner also used to come here seldom, he was a businessman". Neighbours.
• In household 587 - "Inhabitants show up sometimes, but do not live here". Neighbours from the upper floor.

The town of Kuvasai

• Household 1133 - "Dwellers live here, but come very late and leave very early, as they work at the plant. That woman (interviewer) came three times, but failed to find them home". Neighbour.
• Household 1134 - "They do not live here, for they have a village house. Mahalla representative.
• Household 1138 - "They do not live here and they have even been sued for municipal services non-payment". Neighbours.
• Household 1140 - "Few people live here, as gas, water etc. are unavailable". Neighbours from apartments number 17, 18.
• Household 1139 - The house is situated in the corner of the crossing and according to mahalla lists, it is referred to Kodiri street (house 14), but virtually its dwellers say, that their postal address is Burhonova street 19. They also said that a part of house is referred to Kodiri street till now, but it's a non-living area.
• Household 1139 (Azizova street, house 203, apartement 41) - "The owner of apartment shows up sometimes, but he lives in another district, in a land plot house". Neighbour Faya from apartment 42.

In the city of Tashkent under various reasons people in charge of check could not find the dwellers neither and got an answer from neighbours:

• Household 1464 - they would not open the door and shout at the controlling person to get away. Evidently, the interviewer had been treated in the same manner.
• Household 1463 - here lives Feruza, but she is working days and nights (in "Ambulance". Her son Timur and someone else were at home, but they did not open the door.
• Household 1449 - A dweller of this house Mukaddas is in the hospital.
• Household 1456 - This apartment has been in repair already for 3 weeks, and maintenance workers answered that the owners live in another place.

PROBLEMS DURING QUESTIONING CONDUCT
Different problems arose during questioning conduct. For instance, in Samarkandskaya oblast local authorities did not permit to conduct survey until superior (oblast hokimiyat) authorities endorse it in written. It usually takes 3-4 days to obtain such permission (the time, this issue is studied in Khokimiyat). But in this case the supervisor phoned directly from the Khokimiyat's representative and afterwards a promise was given to accelerate the process. Works were started the following day.

At PSU 45 of Angren town there were problems, i.e. the mahalla committee's representative refused to grant households lists without the authorities (Khokimiyat) permission. But after the interviewer went to khokimiyat with a letter and showed it to them, the khokimiyat representative made a call to the mahalla committee telling them to render assistance to her.

In Tashkent City almost in all (in four among five) mahallas there were similar problems. There were difficulties in interviewers' contacts with respondents. For instance in Tashkent, when an interviewer knocked the door, this household's dwellers told him to wait and asked by telephone their neighbours to come. When the neighbours gathered around, the dweller said that he did not know this individual (interviewer), but that the latter would like to visit them.

In many places, mostly, in rural locations, interviewers had to work from early morning until late evening due to cotton gathering season. People went to fields early in the morning (since 5-6 AM) and came back home towards 21-22 PM. That is why interviewers had also to visit them at such hours.

Interviewers had some difficulties in obtaining household lists of a PSU, where PSU consisted of a few settlements. For example, in PSU No33 an interviewer had to collect lists of all three villages, as not all lists were in SGB.

In PSU No2 due to the household lists unavailability in the mahalla committee (as they had been handed over to house committees for update) an interviewer tried to collect these lists from these house committees, but without success, as they, in their turn, also handed over the lists to their assistants. So the interviewer had to find the mahalla' s map, where all mahalla's street were designated and houses numerated, and to make sampling.

In Kashkadar'ya oblast, Guzar district, our interviewer asked a woman from this village to show locations of several households, and she joined our interviewer for half a day. But the inhabitants of PSU No21 took our interviewer for a wahhabist and wanted to drive away from the village the woman, who assisted her in showing addresses, for "the help to a wahhabist". On the second day our interviewer was detained by police and after examining her documents, they warned her, that the mahalla's women were waiting to meet her in the street and even to beat her. As to the woman, who showed her addresses the first day, she was already "done", i.e. they came to her house, scolded and insulted her, etc. and left only after her husband came home. The interviewer had to ask a police station officer that somebody from the mahalla's committee accompany her. For this reason she had many refusals in this village, (the rumours of the wahhabist' coming to their mahalla ran ahead of the "wahhabist" (our interviewer) herself), and so the inhabitants feared to answer her and would not open the door or pretended that they were out).

According to observations and notes of interviewers during questioning, various obstacles impeded their work. So, rather frequently during interviews, the interviewee's relatives would also announce their wish to participate in them. Most often it was done by men (husbands or fathers), who did not want to leave their wives or daughters all alone with the interviewer. In the majority of cases, interviewers, using skills, obtained during contact establishing training and the interviewer's behaviour in likewise cases, managed to persuade other family members not to distract the interviewee, but sometimes it was rather hard. Here are some observations of interviewers, which complete the questioning situation:
The respondent's (woman's) husband did not permit to interview his wife, explaining that they were not in need of additional problems. But in the given case, the interviewer asked to call for both his wife and other relatives. When they came up, he once again made the purpose of his visit and the survey clear to them and said, that if they did not agree to be interviewed, he would have to stay for a few days more to find somebody to replace them. Afterwards they gave permission. But during the interview the respondent's husband did not leave them alone and did not go away. According to the interviewer, though, he absolutely did not interfere and did not join the interview. Or others would say "And what shall we get? What for should we waste our time?" In such cases people did not mean personal profit, but the benefit for all, and they asked if this survey would promote to "plants and factories opening in their settlement or district" or "if the researchers (we) are able of augmenting their pensions" etc.

Interviewers had to "talk into" not only ordinary people, but even mahalla representatives. For example, a similar situation occurred in a mahalla, when its representative said to the interviewer that "it is roughly tens of times that likewise organisations with various surveys come to us, but not a single one has brought changes for the better, which we might feel". It took place in PSU ?36 of Samarkandskaya oblast. The interviewer responded to him, that "even if our results be used for improvement in any sphere, it is will not happen that soon, as before and after materials are submitted, it takes a few years for consideration of issues. And we are just researchers, our goal is to study public opinion regarding this or that matter, and other people, experts, are in charge of improvement, so we are unaware when our survey will be used for improvement or the issue solution".

Many respondents were interested to know what the use, they would get from those questioning, is, and if their lives would improve afterwards. Some relatives put pressure on respondents, trying to persuade them not to waste the time. Most often the respondents' behaviour was normal.

In general, 2 kinds of people's opinions are most often spread - that any conducted questioning is aimed at the life's improvement and that it will give its results. The second one is the incredulity that any benefit may arise from these surveys. This is the source of their inadequate reaction towards interviewers, accusing them in doing waste job, which brings benefit to nobody. According to the interviewer, there were instances, when even mahalla's representative told him that it was useless and asked why he (interviewer) does not fill in questionnaires and hand over his work instead of visiting households. And that he ostensibly knows that the population would fail to answer properly in any case. Here the interviewer explained that "the given questioning is a sampling study of the population opinion on living standards, national economy situation and the ties with other Central Asian countries and that each respondent's opinion is very precious to us and we need opinions of many individuals. And that we have no aim to get "proper" answers, but any people's view, and therefore we do not divide the responses and opinions into right or wrong".

Though the interviewers had passed "the interview conduct technique and the correct contact establishing with the household members" training and they had on their hands "general guidance on an interview conduct", many of them, who worked in town, received refusals. The explanation lies in rural inhabitants being more amiable, hospitable, as compared with their urban counterparts, and one can always find another member of the household to talk to, identify a respondent and appoint another hour of visit or ask him to inform the respondent about it. As for cities, it is impossible there, as children are at school, parents are at work, and the elderly will not open the door. Besides, in cities people are busy from morning till evening and after work they may refuse to grant an interview, whereas in villages even after work people usually do not to refuse the guest.