Крах либеральной модернизации и вызов "Русской матрицы"

Вопросы теоретической экономики. 2026. № 2. С. 26–45.

Zaostrovtsev A. P.

Th is article examines the conceptual and factual failure of liberal modernization in the contemporary
era. Transitology, so infl uential in the 1990s, has faded into oblivion. Th e Western model has failed to take hold
in many post-socialist countries. In terms of democratization, the gap between Russia and the countries that
adopted this model has become radical. At the same time, the West has begun to lose the qualities inherent in
classical liberalism. Th ey are being supplanted by new institutions designed to destroy the rule of law and, more
broadly, its cultural identity. Against the backdrop of this decline, a new image of the system of traditional Russian
fundamental institutions, known as the “Russian matrix,” has begun to emerge in the 21st century. Th rough these
institutions, Russia, as a local form of global forced civilization, has challenged the latter’s alternative form—the
legal one. At the core of this is the key component of this matrix, which defi nes its objective function: institutional
expansionism. Th e other components of the messianic task are subordinated to its fulfi llment: power-property and
the rent-class social order. Long-term public opinion polls in Russia convincingly demonstrate that the legitimacy
of the social system is high, since every attempt to practically fulfi ll this task through the confl ict with Ukraine
generates stable and long-term support in the form of recognition that the country is on the right path.

Keywords: цивилизации, Запад, институты, institutions, легитимность, транзитология, messianism, либеральная модернизация, civilizations, мессианство, legitimacy, transitology, the West, liberal modernization, «Russian matrix», institutional expansionism, "Русская матрица", институциональный экспансионизм