"Neo-Conservative Wave" in Contemporary Russia: A Phase of the Next Cycle or a Stable Stage?

Abstract

Leontiy Bysov — Senior Researcher, Institute of Sociology, Russian Academy of Sciences. Address: Bldg. 5, 24/35, Krzhizhanovskii St., Moscow, 117218, Russian Federation. E-mail: leontiy13@mail.ru

Behind the political and social stability of the last decade there lies a substantial shift in the values of the society. The socio-cultural nature of this shift is dualistic: on the one hand, it bears the conservative character of a return to century-old traditions and archetypes; on the other, it reflects a swift social modernization of the lifestyles, values and demands of contemporary urban Russians with a desire for mass consumption. Contemporary Russian neo-conservatism is an alternative not only to the liberal and conservative values, but also a process which shapes the stable order in society, where the traditional values and institutions can no longer exist. The social nucleus of the neo-conservative synthesis is produced by the most flexible strata of Russians, who in many parameters correspond to the so-called ‘new middle class’. In the past 7-8 years, this group of neo-conservatives has attracted a lot of supporters and has become a dominating force, determining the vector of the country’s development and the particularities of Russia’s political transformation.

There has also formed a neo-conservative ideology, which is more or less accepted by the rest of the leading social strata. It represents a synthesis of the leftist and rightist ideologies, to which the ideas of a strong state, a statist order and social justice have become the central ones. And this general consensus ever the neo-conservative ideologies has persisted even throughout the difficulties of the world economic crisis. At the same time, the national self-conscience of the neo-conservatives and their identity are still quite contradictory, and the process of shaping one ‘political nation’ is far from being over. Despite the ideological consolidation, the adequate institutions capable of binding together the atomized Russian society have not yet been formed.