The course is designed to study the features of the political structure of modern Russia. It contains both general information on the institutional, procedural and value components of the political system and public policy in Russia, as well as a description of the problems, contradictions and prospects for the political development of the country. The course contains three main modules: (1) the political system and regime in Russia: state institutions, political parties, civil society; (2) the public policy process in Russia: the mechanisms for elaborating, adopting and implementing policies and decisions; (3) directions and problems of economic and social policy in Russia: development based on stabilization. The course is aimed at those listeners who want to gain systematic knowledge of politics in Russia, as well as those who are focused on studying Russia's political development in complex and uncertain contexts. Studying the course students can choose the level of the course (general or in-depth), focusing on video material, information, discussions, forums, evaluations and interactive communication with teachers. The advanced level of the course development assumes the active participation of students in discussions, forums and project assignments. The overall mission of the course is to develop students' objective political knowledge about Russia and their ability to make critical scientific analysis and assessment.
Social Stratification in Russian Federation and Different Social groups’ Values
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来自 Saint Petersburg State University 的课程
Political Governance and Public Policy in Russia
22 个评分
从本节课中
Russian party system and civic society
与讲师见面
Kirill A. NeverovCandidate of Political Sciences
Assistant Professor at the Department of Political Governance
Leonid V. SmorgunovDoctor of Philosophy
Department of Political Governance
Anna V. VolkovaDoctor of Political Science
Department of Political Governance
Aleksandr S. SherstobitovCandidate of Political Science
Department of Political Governance
[MUSIC]
Greetings everyone.
This topic is about the social stratification of Russian society.
We need to analyze the social structure and
public balance of different social groups.
As well as it can help us to understand the social framework of political regime.
You however already know that the policies of institutionalization of democracy in
Russia which was started with perestroika was rather complicated and controversial.
Now we have got some fundamental results of it.
Here is you can see the mined results of
process of democratization in Russia.
First of all, Russia has a new constitution.
It based on the principle of separation of powers and
since that time we had had regular elections.
Those are very much important because as well as you know that
elections are the real true test for accountability in a democratic regime.
I would like to say that at the present time Russian citizen have got
a legal opportunity for institutionalization of group interests.
There are some non government organization, professional group,
public foundation and a local community network.
Now we are in the complicated process of creating
a multi party system in Russia it's very much important for our future.
It's important to research a democratic political forums and legal society,
in contemporary Russia in the context of fundamental challenges.
All which took place in the first year of independence of Russia.
Do you know what I mean?
First of all appearance of private priority.
The privatization in 1992, free sale of land and
distribution of a new management values in a post Soviet society.
Soviet society was mainly unipolar and paternalistic.
The shock reforms at the beginning of 1990s created precondition for
transition to multiple social systems.
I mean elite, low class, and the middle class.
The balance between these groups probably demands challenges for
new system of public administration in Russia.
I would like to draw your attention to the connection between democratization
process and changing of Russian civil society structure.
The process of democratization depends on the roles of the middle class.
By the way, the term civil society and the middle class are as in for
our public policy and our political science discussion.
Whenever we use them for
describing our society in the Soviet times because of Marxist ideology.
We normally used terms proletariat, workers, peasants.
But the development of the middle class in Russia has three main stages.
It started in 1970s when economic situation in
Soviet Union was stable because of increasing oil price.
At that time, many Soviet families has got possibility
to buy their first TV sets, fridges and cars.
All of these things were made in Soviet Union.
Made many people have higher education.
The higher education was a great valor in Soviet society.
But human rights, international communication, freedom of speech,
democratic values, these became more and more important for Soviet people.
This was a new type of thinking,
it explained the support of prehistorical from most of Soviet people
especially in the cities where the middle class was significant.
The shock reforms, this integration of Soviet Union and
the global social economic crisis in 1990s,
in fact damage all results of middle class development.
People lost their money in the state bank system, they lost trust.
Now, middle class grows, but it doesn't dominate.
It can explain the priorities and the list of criteria for middle class in Russia.
The elected, therefore, representative of the Russian middle class,
values and self-identification are more important than a level of money.
If we compare the Russian middle class with the Western, European,
or an American middle class, we will see that in Russia
this social group is mainly poorer than the Western one.
But once again, I would like to say that for Russian middle class values and
the self identification are much more important.
Exempt to this the Russian social composition is rather diverse owing
to dynamic and diverse rates during the last century.
The age structure of the population varies in contemporary Russia.
There are two perils made by significant increase of birth rate
in the 20th century.
The first well known baby boom occurred immediately after World War II.
It was a change of trend that was large and expected.
The second baby boom took place during the era of stagnation.
At the slide, you can see two generation of baby boomers and
some demographic beats.
The baby boom generation is technologically competent, well educated
and has different expectations from those of previous generation.
After that, at the beginning of the 1919s, demographic crisis has operated.
Never the less, population segments led to difficult with
collection of taxes and parliament of descent pensions.
The officials subsistence level now is rather low,
it could be called like extreme poverty.
Still the calculation of pension and
government assistant are based on that information.
And it's rather important for
understanding of social dynamic of Russian society.
And this slide you can see difference between salaries received in region and
in Moscow and Saint-Petersburg.
This mean not only economy, but also social and value gap.
Dissatisfaction among regions creates a negative impact on
the cooperation process.
The most memorable segment of the population are pensions.
The pension is rather small.
It's about $300 a month, and irrespective of where they live.
As you can see, there are few pensions among the representatives
of the middle class in Russia.
A retirement in Russia is often perceived as both, a moral and financial tragedy.
Because of these pensioners tend to work as long as they could.
This becomes a problem for a new generation of employers and
provokes intergenerational conflicts.
Considering social research results, we can conclude that majority
of the population believed that our society organization is unfair.
It's more than 60% of population.
Injustice has become a part of daily routine.
At the same time, the huge salary is for official and
the source of constant frustration for the ordinary people and
popular term for the political discussion during the last 20 years.
It can be illustrated on example in a position leader Alexei Navalny.
He would like to draw public attention to extreme reach [INAUDIBLE] cause and
watchers of some officials, deputies, ministers and legit.
Public opinion or foundation or would you prefer this research
is rather loyal to public administration system.
And in fact they result from the oppositions to
structure is much more diverse.
Here you can see probably the main question addressed to our
government from the citizen.
It is a painful paradox.
The poverty in a land which is so rich in natural resource.
Although people understand the proceeds of selling oil, gas,
and coal are distributed unfairly.
By the way, it's about 72% of population.
They still have greater faith in the state than in private organization.
They split all of their forms, but the tradition of Russia persists strong.
And this bar chart shows the change size of the middle
class in Russia from 2003 to 2015.
In particular, it demonstrates
that the middle class increased
through the 2003 to 2008.
This research was made by the Russian Academic of Science and
it demonstrates a stable growth, but it is an optimistic scenario.
Some of political researchers and oppositional deputies
has an information that the middle class in Russia now is not more than 7%.
I'm absolutely sure that it all depends on criterias.
