Запрос на перемены: политико-ценностное измерение

Полис. Политические исследования. 2020. № 6. С. 103–118.

Петухов Р. В.

The social perturbations during the first half of 2020-ies marked the contradictions that were accumulating in the Russian society for recent years. One aspect of social disengagement is the peculiar attitude of different social groups and strata towards the long-term course of the contemporary government towards maintaining stability, that is used to be understood as the course that preserve the existing political and economic system and its «game’s rules». The sociological data of the monitoring studies of the Institute of Sociology of the FCTAS (RAS) demonstrates that Russian society is divided into approximately two equal parts. One it part wish for change and believe that shortage of serios economic and social reforms would cause the state stagnate. The other part wants to maintain stability and believe that nobody should rush transformations having no information about its results. The reasons of the formation and content of the public request for change have already been analyzed by the working group of the research project “Social Transformation of Russian Society: the Actors of the Request for Change,” therefore, the author of this article focuses on the identification of the factors that influence on the subjective choice in favor of change or stability. The analysis demonstrate that such a choice is determinated by political, not by social differences between the supporters either of changes or of stability, which are manifesting, first of all, when by many Russians are aware that the border between private and public in modern Russia is illusory. The author, applying to the sociological data, demonstrates the correlation between the increase of number of the “self-sufficient Russians” and the formation of a request for change. The combination of this attitude with a perspective vision of the future becomes a key factor that forces the desire for change. The social request for changes that is not accepted by the authorities forms a special identity that can transform the sense of resentment into a collective action to uphold one’s vision of the future.

Keywords: демократия, стабильность, гражданское участие, democracy, социальные изменения, social activity, образ будущего, social change, civic participation, political activity, request for change, запрос на перемены, social stability, self-sufficient, perspective thinking, политическая и социальная активность, самодостаточность