Vol 24, No 4 (2022): Politics in Russian Regions

Regional convergence is one of the greatest strategic challenges for the Russian Federation. Socio-economic zoning directly affects the regional policy in Russia, as most administrative and political practices are reproduced within a federal district or an economic region. This study is aimed at identifying steady clusters or, in other words, groups of Russian regions, based on quantitative data on socio-economic development. The study relies on the methods of spatial econometrics. The authors also aim to compare the results of their study to the macro-regions suggested by the Strategy of Regional Development of the Russian Federation and therefore to the current administrative practices. The paper determines 12 clusters continual in space, based on 62 regional development indicators and reflecting the statistical resemblance of the regions within a cluster. The study has not found stable macro-regions of similar values except in Siberia and the Far East. Thus, the authors conclude that addressing the wide range of socio-economic problems based on one standardized grid for dividing the country will likely not lead to success. Therefore, a more asymmetric and multi-level regional policy should be sought. This implies that every ministry responsible for an area of regional development should come up with its own spatial structure of Russia in order to define its targets and the practices required to meet them.

Radical Islam as a political phenomenon has undergone significant changes during the first decades of the 21st century. This process was accompanied, firstly, by the strengthening unification trends in the ideological field, and secondly, by the development of a specific “Jihadi Cool” subculture that combined the features of the consumer society (modern music, stylish clothes, Islamic merch, youth magazines, etc.) and jihadist agenda. These factors, in combination, form a new version of religious radicalism - post-industrial Islamism, which poses a significant threat to international security. Questions regarding the degree and the nature of post-industrial Islamism in the Russian Federation have not yet been scrutinized in academic literature. The article is the first attempt to understand this problem, which exists in a complex socio-economic and ethno-confessional environment of Russia. The theoretical framework of the study was the works of leading domestic Islamic scholars dealing with the problems of Islamic radicalism. In the indicated paradigm, the authors made an attempt to give their own definition of radical Islam, to identify the characteristic features of the phenomenon, to separate religious extremism from fundamentalism. Work with the empirical base was carried out through the methods of descriptive statistics, as well as the use of qualitative and quantitative content analysis. It was made on the basis of Google Trends data, cross-checked through the Wordstat.yandex system. In conclusion, the team of authors came to conclusions regarding the spread of post-industrial Islamism in Russia. There is an increase in the activity of radicals in the Internet space, their work to expand the base of support for the movement, based on knowledge of the algorithms of social networks. Also, elements of the ‘jihadi cool’ have been identified too. It is important to note that all the trends listed above originated outside the Russian Federation and were borrowed by the radicals. In general, this only confirms the idea of the peripheral nature of Russian Islamic radicalism, which throughout its history has been an alien element on the national ethno-cultural environment.

Perm Krai and the socio-political processes taking place in it are in many ways typical of Russia, and therefore of interest to a wide audience of researchers and political analysts. Based on the theoretical constructions of international elites studies and the Perm School of Political Science and elitology, we study the political and business elites of the region, their political behavior, aspects of identity, as well as the most politically sensitive topics in the life of the region. Relying primarily on the literature analysis and subsequent own semi-standardized in-depth interviews (N10) with representatives of regional elites - the following results were obtained. The identity of the elites and everymen in Perm region is somewhat vague, associated with the neutral notion of geographical region of the Kama region. Liberalism in the economic sphere and a relatively stable inter-elite consensus in the political sphere, based on technocracy, are characteristic of the region’s policy for some decades. The region is characterized by a low socio-political dynamics compared to the benchmark regions of the Urals and Siberia, due to lack of regionally oriented elites and businesses and the predominance of various kinds of “Varangians” in the political class. The socio-political and cultural landscape of the region (the Perm Cultural Project) becomes a starting place and a source of supplies for the elites, receiving back very little. Thus, the region remains a promising project that cannot be realized in any way.

This article analyzes the nature of colonization processes in the European north of Russia in different eras. Special consideration is given to the problematic nature of modern demographic and social processes and their ethno-cultural component. Significant attention is paid to the analysis of the nature of the social and cultural development in the European North in previous eras and to the rethinking of existing interpretations of the process of the socialist industrialization in this area. It is demonstrated that from the standpoint of the general sociological approach, this industrialization cannot be viewed as a process of modernization, and therefore it would be more correct to speak of the next stage of colonization, the penal one. In the late Soviet period, a transition to a new model of the regional development took place. However, this new model presupposed neither the civil integration nor the formation of rooted societies. Strong rooted territorial communities with a clearly defined identity have not formed in the northern republics and oblasts. It is shown that there is an urgent need to form a new model for the development of the European north, using both the resource of cultural heritage and modern approaches to the formation of the industrial and social environment. In addition, the need for a large-scale renewal of the regional political elites as well as the very principles of their formation is becoming more and more obvious. The work uses comparative historical and ethnographic methods, the provisions of migration theory, the statistical and sociological methods (mass polls), as well as political and sociological approaches to understanding social conflict. As for the political science approaches, the article is based on the provisions of rational choice theory.

The relevance of the research project is determined by the dominant role of elite groups in modern Russian politics. The opportunity and ability of the elite to solve topical social issues to a large extent depend on the degree of their influence. The article presents the results of an expert study in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region (late November to early December 2021). Representatives of the regional political elite themselves, as well as “key informants” acted as experts. The technology for collecting expert information included a set of qualitative and quantitative methods (methods of grouping data with an estimate of the average values of the variation series and dispersion measures, as well as multidimensional scaling, factorial and cluster analysis). The evaluation was carried out on 22 parameters. In St. Petersburg, six factors are associated with the strategies used by the authorities to strengthen their influence: the conditions of general and political socialization; dominant communication strategies of politicians based on the type of their leadership; economic resources; informal grounds for political career related to the politicians’ families; cultivation of clientelism, atypical for a metropolis; the regional elite having work experience in other areas, in addition to public administration and public policy. The politicians themselves are mostly attracted to three image types: a) a productive political “heavyweight”, belonging to a clan by birthright or “overgrown” with economic and informal ties, including with “shadow structures”, who has real economic opportunities to influence the situation in the region; b) a “political tribune”, who actively communicates with the population and relies on cultivating a stable positive attitude towards themselves among the inhabitants of the region; c) an “insider”, connected with the region by their destiny and having stable political views. The study showed that in St. Petersburg, public communicative activity online and offline is not a significant condition for strengthening the “political weight” of a politician; belonging to a clan (family, friend group, professional clan) is much more important. Experts deny that accentuated masculine or feminine behaviour patterns of politicians in St. Petersburg are a significant factor in strengthening their influence. In the Leningrad Region, the configuration of the latent factors influencing the significance of politicians is different. The most important factors include the following: the channel and method of politician’s recruitment to power; the activity of personal information policy on the Internet; the presence of social, human and status capital through birth in a certain family or effective interaction with certain influential regional groups; an accentuated demonstration of personal resources; the presence of real leadership qualities; control over economic resources in the region. Five dominant types of politicians were identified in terms of the various qualities exploited by them and demonstrated to the public. The importance of the ability of politicians to large-scale, strategic thinking in solving regional problems and the accentuated gender type of behaviour in public politics was confirmed.

The article presents the results of a study of young people’s perceptions of regional youth policy. The authors use the theoretical model of the subjective space of politics to analyze empirical data reflecting the state of the subjective space of sectoral policy - the state youth policy of the Krasnodar Krai. The main motives of youth activity in regional youth policy are determined based on the data from a mass survey of young people, focus group interviews and a series of expert sessions with representatives of authorities and other entities implementing state youth policy. The article reveals the constructive and negative potential of young people’s social activity, as well as identifies the main social profiles of young people and describes their content parameters. The authors conclude that young people are involved in interactions with the authorities to solve their own problems or the problems of other people. They show that social projects, territorial development projects, the activities of political parties and local self-government have the biggest potential for involving young people in social activity. They also note the existing potential of young people’s participation in protests. The authors describe the profiles of young people according to two parameters: according to the severity of social orientation young people are divided into consumers (orientation towards themselves, solving their own problems) and transformers (orientation towards solving other people’s problems); and according to the degree of leadership positions and social activity they are characterized as leaders and followers.

In the last few years, great attention has been paid to the protest potential of students, especially in the context of the mass protests of 2021-2022, which happened at both federal and regional levels. An important scientific issue, which is of practical importance for public authorities and politicians, is determining the motivations and actualization of the student protest movements, as the most organized segment of the youth environment. Based on the results of 14 focus groups held in 8 border regions of Siberia and the Far East (including the Altai Krai, the Zabaykalsky Krai, the Primorsky Krai and the Khabarovsk Krai, the Omsk Oblast, as well as Tyva, Buryatia and Altai Republics) as well as the analysis of the social media and blogosphere of the mentioned regions, the author suggests that the students experience fears, weariness, and disappointment. However, the factors actualizing the protest moods are highly limited. Actual precedents and threats of criminal prosecution that have been applied to the political activists by the government since 2019, as well as the pressure from the authorities and the socialization agents, lead to the demoralization of the youth and their refusal to participate not only in protests but also in pro-government events.