printRussians’ Ideas about the Future of the Country:
is there a Consensus?
Тrofimova I.N.
Dr. Sci. (Pol.), Senior Researcher, Institute of Sociology of FCTAS RAS, Moscow, Russia itnmv@mail.ru
For citation:
Тrofimova I.N. Russians’ Ideas about the Future of the Country: is there a Consensus?. Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya [Sociological Studies]. 2022. No 10. P. 37-48
Abstract
The relevance of the study is due to the difficulties in forming country’s future image in a transforming society, growing contradictions in relation to individual prospects and the ongoing discussion in determining the causes and consequences of these contradictions. The theoretical basis of the study is a set of provisions on the polymodality of social time, acceleration of social dynamics, complexity of the image of the future and its dependence on the specifics of social interactions in a particular society. The empirical base of the study is the data of a nationwide sociological survey in March 2021 using the method of questioning respondents using a quota representative sample. The analysis showed that the respondents’ attitude to the image of the country’s future is a specific set of cognitive (priority of private interests over public), emotional (a combination of optimism and pessimism) and behavioral (civic passivity) components. It is concluded that a majority of Russians represent the desired future of the country as a democratic social state with stable institutions and a preserved national and civilizational identity, but they prefer to privately adapt to the present than to participate in the creation of this future. This determines the routine temporal orientation of the mass consciousness of Russian society.
Keywords
Russian society; image of the future; dynamics; temporal orientation; consensus
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