‘Poverty is Normalizing Instability’ in Putin’s Russia and Sparking Micro-Protests but Not Mass Demonstrations, Sociologist Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 1 – “Poverty normalizes instability,” a Russian sociologist speaking on condition of anonymity says, because “when everything can fall apart at any moment, expectation of misfortune becomes the norm,” trust in long-term projects collapses, and changes popular attitudes about law and behavior.

            Speaking to the Kavkazr portal about conditions in the North Caucasus, she says that as a result, “the value of ‘here and now’ goes up” while those living in poverty are quite prepared to circumvent laws in order to survive (kavkazr.com/a/bednostj-normalizuet-nestabiljnostj-sotsialjno-ekonomicheskie-itogi-goda-na-severnom-kavkaze-i-yuge-rossii/33628080.html).

            Moreover, the sociologist continues, “the understanding of success changes: it becomes not growth but rather ‘not falling further behind,’ about having the ability to hold on rather than ‘slide down.’” People increasingly rely not on formal structures but on networks consisting of family, neighbors and acquaintances.”

            According to her, “this simultaneously strengthens solidarity and creates obligations and control (‘you owe us’), reinforcing debt morality. From the outside, this appears to be “a stable cultural and social adaptation,” especially as “social protests are unlikely given that people are surviving and afraid of losing what little is current available.”

            As a result, mass protests become rarer and rarer, but they “are being replaced by local ‘micro-conflicts’” like “complaints, denunciations and appeals, especially because there are few examples when protests have succeeded. Indeed, given the massive security services, poor people in particular believe are “useless” and will “lead to nothing” but disaster.

            Other factors reducing the propensity to protest, the sociologist continues, include the departure of the active opposition after the start of Putin’s expanded invasion of Ukraine, the arrests of any remaining, and the growing dependence of the poor on what subsidies they receive from the state.

            In addition, she says, poverty reproduces itself with “the migration of young people from lagging regions makes poverty there chronic, since those who leave are often people with entrepreneurial potential – those who could create new practices, businesses, initiatives, and change institutions.

And “when there is no image of the future, she concludes, “people more easily accept simple answers, are more easily radicalized, and more easily find "culprits," supporting forceful solutions and/or populism. All this can lead to quiet degradation, depopulation, criminalization, as well as to surges of instability in the event of sharp external shocks.”