Survey: our country already misses democratic reforms

Russian society is “pregnant” with changes, moreover of a democratic nature, show the results of a study by sociologist Tamara Pavlova from the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, whose conclusions are quoted by the Tolkovatel channel:

“The data of four all-Russian representative sociological surveys conducted in 2018-2021. Department of Comparative Political Studies of the Federal Scientific Research Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences, testify to certain shifts in the minds of Russians, the presence of a fixed “request for change”, primarily to change the existing social and political order.

About 70-80% of our respondents were in favor of their partial or complete change, mainly through reforms (they were supported by 40% of respondents), while only 6-9% were supporters of revolutionary methods. More than a third of respondents who consider changes necessary are ready to personally participate in the implementation of changes, and about the same number are not ready to personally participate in their implementation.

The number of active citizens who are ready to personally participate in the implementation of changes has grown quite noticeably in 2021 compared to the previous year (from 32 to 38% of supporters of change), while the number of those who are not ready for this (passive) has significantly decreased (from 42 to 35%).

What is the vector of desired institutional changes in the perceptions of our citizens? According to the data we received in the 2021 survey, the majority of our respondents (42%) consider the democratic form of political and social structure to be the most useful for the development of Russia, while almost half the number of adherents turned out to be in the currently existing in Russia, as well as the Soviet form of political and social structure (25 and 23%, respectively).

Thus, we can conclude that, despite the existing numerous barriers to the formation of the field of modern democratic politics, created by the power structures of domination, the democratic strategy of institutional change remains in demand in the views of Russian citizens. At the same time, most of the active citizens are supporters of transformations through reforms and democracy in its representative, rather than radical version”.