Young People’s Ideas about the “Optimum State” for Russia: Representations and Predictors

Abstract

The article analyzes the relationships between socio-demographic indicators and the prevalence of youth ideas about the optimum state structure for Russia. The authors identify predictors of such ideas from several elements of the socio-cultural mechanism of self-regulation of life. The ideas about the optimum state structure are measured through indicators of democratic and authoritarian types of government. Based on one-dimensional, two-dimensional and multivariate data analysis (binary logistic regression), the authors show that young people in large cities more often see a democratic state structure as the optimal, while young residents of regional centers and villages prefer an authoritarian one. Age, gender, and type of employment form hybrid relationships. The socio-cultural foundations of preferences for the type of state structure in Russia reflect the complex multi-level structure of political consciousness of the youth.

The main predictors of the ideas about an authoritarian state are elements of both traditional culture (archetypes of the rightness of power and fate, the mental trait of of “suspicion towards foreigners”) and modern culture (stereotype of "“one’s own”: disregard for accepted norms, outrage; habitus of individualism). Such hybridity is a feature of the consciousness of modern youth. Conscious acceptance of authoritarianism is supported by loyal meanings. Among the supporters of an authoritarian state, there is a group of young people who vividly represent their generation, including through hedonism, denial of moral norms, a sense of being chosen, a desire to be in the center of attention and shock, protest against officialdom, escape from reality, freedom without restrictions, including sexual freedom.

The idea of a democratic state as the optimal for Russia is reproduced through the stereotype of a person who disregards accepted norms, presents oneself as an “outsider”, partly through the habitus of selflessness, which is a modern feature of the national character “openness to all things foreign”. The conscious acceptance of the democratic structure of Russia is based on predominantly non-loyal meanings. Democracy is chosen by young people who to a small extent represent their generation, and through some features, such as denial of moral norms, self-perception of being chosen, the desire to be in the center of attention and shock, etc., significantly separate themselves from it.

The semantic unities “loyalty to power ― authoritarianism” and “disloyalty to power ― democracy” reflect both the structured political consciousness of young people in the conjugation of meanings and types of state structure, and the attitude of young people to the current government, the nature of expectations in the political sphere.

Acknowledgements. The authors express their deep gratitude to Natalia Voronina for consultations on data analysis methods.