Posted on 06/18/2005 1:09:25 AM PDT by familyop
While President Vladimir Putin steadily builds his vertical of power, his constituents seem to be experiencing a major shift in attitude away from a sense of stability and order toward feelings of anarchy and turmoil.
According to an opinion poll conducted last month by the Levada Center, 43 percent of Russians think the country is headed toward anarchy. In 2004, only 2 percent shared similar feelings. This dramatic shift has occurred in the course of a single year. It appears to have very little to do with ordinary Russians' reactions to social and economic factors, and a lot to do with an intentional strategy to foment fears of chaos.
Fear for the future is a familiar feeling for the majority of Russians. Back in the early 1990s, most families lived hand to mouth and could barely make ends meet. The transformation of the entire political, social and economic system was so dramatic that people had few expectations of stability.
Yet much has happened since. Russia now has a popular president, a monolithic and extremely predictable legislature and, more importantly, a government with cash to spend.
How can it be that in a country that is not engaged in a major military conflict and is experiencing robust economic growth and a budget surplus, almost half the population apparently feels that tomorrow will bring more chaos?
The same poll provided a partial answer to this riddle. It revealed that the number of Russians who thought Putin would bring more democracy to the country has decreased from 55 percent in 2004 to 12 percent in 2005. But the number of people who think that Russia is moving toward an authoritarian regime remains unchanged at 8 percent. Hence, Russians apparently no longer see the democracy-autocracy dilemma as the main driver of social and political debate.
From the "democratic" 1990s, many Russians took away a very negative impression of democracy as a system of governance. It did not pay the bills and left many in poverty. Current policymakers have apparently decided to transform democracy into an elegant slogan, fit for target audiences abroad.
Yet for domestic consumption, the architects of current policy have stressed in many recent policy proposals, speeches and interviews the imperative to unite behind the president and his party and prevent the country from falling apart. The president himself has frequently made the "collapse story" the starting point of major policy speeches and addresses. The United Russia faction in the State Duma echoes his words. The cleavage between order and anarchy has begun to dominate social discourse. And according to the Levada poll, issues of stability and order have grabbed the attention of 63 percent of Russians, compared with a mere 16 percent a year earlier.
However, the elimination of actual social disorder and instability is not the aim of the government's campaign. Instead, the state wants to instill a sense of instability and chaos in order to open new avenues for controlling society. The administration seems to see this as its only option for staying in power.
And so far, the strategy appears to be working very well. According to the poll, 43 percent of Russians already fear anarchy and chaos.
This strategy is as elegant as it is unsustainable. Decision-makers may think that they have discovered a magic wand to keep society in line, but in reality they have opened a Pandora's box.
The state is walking a fine line between a feeling of chaos and actual anarchy. By no means does the Kremlin want to see Russia collapse. On the contrary, it is doing everything it can to centralize and streamline the control mechanisms at all levels of power. However, the fear that Russia is headed toward chaos could be exploited by any political party or movement and used to gain widespread and destabilizing popularity.
The system of delegative democracy, which best characterizes the current political regime in Russia, only functions well when the state is able to capitalize on people's expectations and constantly provide tangible material benefits. In other words, people delegate a wide range of powers to the president with expectations of immediate and significant rewards.
When expectations exceed the capacity of the state, people withdraw their support for the president. Democracy might not pay the bills and put bread on the table, but neither does fear. Recent opinion polls, such as one by the Russian Academy of Sciences' Demoscope Polling Organization, indicate that Russians have already begun to feel the gap between their expectations and the actual performance of the state. Few are confident that the president and the government are capable of addressing daunting issues like terrorism, inflation and social protection. If this gap is growing despite a positive economic outlook, it is hard to imagine what would happen in a time of economic contraction.
And economic expectations are on the rise. By and large, people have better lives now than they did in the early and mid-1990s. People buy more food, purchase durable goods, take out consumer loans and sign up for credit cards. Consumer culture is spreading fast in Russia, and international financial institutions have become major players on the market. Experts concur that the coming year will see a rapid expansion of consumer finance services from Moscow and St. Petersburg into the regions. The same fate awaits the mortgage market.
People who have loans to pay off do not want to hear words like anarchy and chaos. If things do go south economically, and if the state offers people a nebulous sense of order instead of a paycheck, it is not hard to imagine how the public expression of economic discontent and panic could rapidly escalate out of the Kremlin's control.
Finally, by introducing the elements of fear and chaos, policymakers once again expand the agenda the country has to deal with. The state needs to implement important national projects, such as the structural reform of the economy, health care and education reform and the reform of social services. Its poor performance record thus far indicates that the capacity of the state to deal with pressing issues is very limited. Another agenda item might very well break the back of this government. And this would not bode well for stability.
Alexei Sitnikov is a senior research associate for the Institute for Open Economy in Moscow. He contributed this comment to The St. Petersburg Times.
ping
That was probably the whole point of the poll the begin with.
1. Who was asked (demographic)?
2. What number of participants were gathered?
3. What was the dispersion of those questioned?
4. What were the questions asked and what alternative answers were gathered.
I'm sure if I went to central San Fransico and asked the people, say in the Mission District: Is America under Bush becoming a theocratic tyranny with no economic future? I would get an overwhelming America is hell and we're all doomed.
ping
Weird article. Things are good in some ways and not so good in others. What a unique situation.
My own observations on Russians and their feelings about democracy:
When the Soviet Union imploded and they labeled themselves a democracy they believed that they would be transformed overnight into a western style "democracy" based on free markets and capitalism. They bought into a lot of the VOA and BBC World broadcasts about democracy. The problem is we never stressed to them that such societies are not built overnight, take a lot of sacrifice, go through bad times, etc. So, a lot of the middle-aged and older folks look very badly upon capitalism (and democracy - they see it as the same thing) because they are nostalgic for the times when they had things for practically free (they also forget that with that "socialism" came crappy service, non-existent goods, no choice, and no personal liberties).
Unfortunately, the West also looked the other way when Yeltsin's Kleptocracy was stealing the country blind. Now, when Putin's regime tries to reign in this sort of behavior it's labeled "autocratic."
Sorry, but I've got to disagree with you on that. The West took a very active role in Yeltsin's actions. Note the $6 billion that the Bank of New York laundered and blamed on an accounting error! Arthor Anderson? Or all the "advisors" Clinton sent or his backing for Yeltsin blasting parliment with tanks.
One of rare articles which make some sense about the eviroment in Russia today.
But I disagree on one aspect so.
Pres Putin has tighten centralizing power in Russia not just because he is authoritarian and want it but because that it is needed by country today.
Another question HOW he uses his power.
I would say he is not brillliant powerer also. He have to do it better. He makes many mistakes.
But he at least admits it (as recently in his showing on TV) and try to correct.
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