Excess cultural baggage. Social mobilisation in an authoritarian Russia
Excess cultural baggage. Social mobilisation in an authoritarian Russia

Author(s): Jadwiga Rogoża
Contributor(s): Adam Eberhardt (Editor), Marek Menkiszak (Editor), Anna Łabuszewska (Editor), Wojciech Stanisławski (Editor), Szymon Sztyk (Editor), Magdalena Klimowicz (Translator)
Subject(s): Politics / Political Sciences, Politics, Anthropology, Social Sciences, Civil Society, Governance, Sociology, Government/Political systems, Politics and society, Culture and social structure , Sociology of Culture, Sociology of Politics
Published by: OSW Ośrodek Studiów Wschodnich im. Marka Karpia
Keywords: Russia; social mobilisation; civic initiatives; protests; government inefficiency; cultural policy; political repression; state of culture; politics and culture;
Summary/Abstract: Among the key processes which have been taking place in Russia in recent decades, special attention should be paid to social mobilisation, i.e. the developing habits of taking up grassroots activities, the emergence of horizontal social networks, the large number of formal and informal civic initiatives (both political and non-political). This mobilisation should not be analysed separately from the evolution of the model of the state as a whole, which – especially since 2012 – has seen an increase in repression and a decline in economic efficiency. The main question posed by this study concerns the conditions that make social mobilisation and the citizens’ dissatisfaction with the condition of the state only result in short-term and local outbreaks of protest and not into a change in the entire model of governance. In this context, the text considers both the current and personnel-related factors, and the long-term cultural, social and political factors.

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