Tuesday, December 11, 2018

‘Russian Society’s Development Ever More in Conflict with Russian State’s Degradation,’ Sociologist Says


Paul Goble

            Staunton, December 11 – Russian society is developing in ways that ever more frequently bring it into conflict with the degradation of the Russian state, sociologist Ella Paneyakh says. Up to now, the state has had the advantage but that is beginning to change with society more often able to win out against state interference.

            The St. Petersburg Higher School of Economics scholar says that these trends “may lead to an escalation of repression and the further tightening of the screws,” but they may also lead to “’a thaw,’” depending on which side wins out more often during the coming months (newtimes.ru/articles/detail/174514).

            And that highlights something few have been willing to acknowledge the full implications of, Paneyakh says: “The enemy of the authorities now does not consist of dissidents and human rights defenders but rather the very milieu in which easy coordination and mobilization of people who do not know one another has become possible.”

            Defeating that development, she continues, would require actions that would destroy far more than the regime wants to destroy. And the situation from the state’s perspective is only going to get worse given that ever more people are being swept up into this new communications revolution that the regime has promoted even though it fears the results.

            “Those who were apolitical yesterday massively go to the polls, having discovered the chance to oppose the outsiders the Kremlin has imposed in the second round: the public in the Internet, which yesterday hardly engaged in charity, in the course of a few days collects millions to cover the fine against The New Times, and the arrest of a well-known rapper” mobilizes millions more.

            According to Paneyakh, “tension is growing from two sides. “On the one hand, the government is increasing its pressure on society.”  But on the other, while the regime is focusing on the conventional political opposition, parents of school children and other groups outside of politics in the past are becoming political.

            “People living in Russia have become less ready to tolerate injustice and arrogance deployed against their interests” and are using social media to mobilize and take action. That and not some group of opposition figures is the real threat to the powers that be in Putin’s Russia at present, the sociologist continues.

            “The post-Crimea mobilization ‘around the flag’ has exhausted its potential,” and ever more people are displaying the attitudes which powered the protests of 2011-2012.  “While the regime struggles with Navalny and the network of his supporters,” the internet in all its forms has changed the population and its ability to respond.

            The problem for the powers that be, Paneyakh says, is that this infrastructure “is not the infrastructure of specific protest but the infrastructure of contemporary society and its economy as well.” Going after that to kill off protests will damage more than just the protester and that leaves the regime with few good choices.
           
            Nearly ever second Russian now has an account in social networks. Two out of three go to YouTube at least once a week; and any attack on their possibilities will redound against those who attack them because it will harm “the economy directly and the quality of life of all, both loyal and disloyal, as well as the future development of the country.”

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