Institute of Modern Russia

Liberal Democratic Issues

The Russian middle class has generally been described as politically apathetic, but this is hardly a distinction in a society that has negative or ambiguous feelings about democracy. In the twenty years since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, free, fair, and competitive elections have never truly determined the transition of executive power in Russia. The pluralism of the 1990s led to chaos and economic collapse, tying negative connotations to the concept of democracy. Even in an October 2010 poll, only 34 percent of people felt it was possible to describe Russia as a democratic state, while 19 percent were not able to answer the question. The significant portion of survey respondents who were unable to form an opinion about Russian democracy speaks to a lack of clarity about either the term itself or the actions of the Russian state.

Might these attitudes be shifting in the urban middle class? Many members of this group are in their twenties and thirties and became politically active when Putin was already in office and Medvedev’s election gave the appearance of political debate. They might thus be less likely than the general population to have Yeltsin-era negative associations with democracy. Second, in the second half of the 2000s, the urban middle class exhibited increasing concerns over their ability to impact the political system. Overall, the group surveyed by Gudkov and colleagues, regardless of professional sector and political involvement, found the most lacking feature of Russian politics to be “a controllable mechanism of political goal setting (the lack of transparency in the procedure of decision making), which is to say the suppression of any potential for legitimate innovations in society” (Gudkov, Dubin, and Zorkaia 2009: 47–48). That a lack of transparency is seen as a critical problem for young, urban, well-off professionals suggests that a major need for political expression is going unaddressed.

Additionally, the financial crisis may have had a secondary impact on attitudes toward the practice of democracy in Russia. Russians who experienced negative impacts of the financial crisis were not less likely to support the regime but were less likely to positively evaluate the institution of democracy in Russia (Chaisty and Whitefield 2012: 198). This effect was notably stronger among private-sector employees with a middle-class background as compared with state-sector employees and those with a working-class background. Somewhat similarly, McAllister and White found that blaming Russian leadership for the financial crisis negatively impacted beliefs about democratic progress in Russia and assessments of the individual’s ability to impact government (though they also found that Russians were likely to blame the crisis on democracy itself, rather than on the regime in general, and in particular did not hold Putin responsible) (2011: 490).

These shifts all give reason to believe that middle-class Muscovites may have become increasingly concerned with issues of representative and transparent governance in recent years and would thus exhibit a greater concern for liberal democratic issues leading up to the protests (Hypothesis 2). The survey response “democracy and human rights” to the question, “Which of the following issues are most important to the country?” explicitly addresses the issue of Western-style representative government.

This hypothesis also uses three issues as proxies for concern about the political system and the appropriate exercise of state power: corruption and red tape, the influence of oligarchs on the political and economic life of the country, and ecology and environmental problems. All three proxies can indicate increasing demands for representation, the elimination of alternative interests, and an end to the exploitative use of the state for private gain. The first two proxies, corruption and red tape and the influence of oligarchs on economic and political life, address alternative interests that divert officials from governing in the best interest of their citizens. An increasing concern about the influence of oligarchs suggests concern about the motivations and incentives of those running the country and whether they are serving themselves and the ultra-elite or the people. Corruption—the abuse of state power for personal gain—has become increasingly recognized as a pervasive problem. Corruption received a great deal of attention under Medvedev, who launched a sweeping yet wholly ineffective anti-corruption campaign in 2008. Corruption is likely to be a particular concern in Moscow, where citizens consume a wider range of media in independent publications and online and are thus more likely to be aware of corruption. Moreover, entrepreneurs and private-sector employees are more likely to be the losers in corrupt transactions, paying bribes to state employees for building permits, fire inspections, and other interactions with the state that private enterprise necessitates. Finally, as more members of the urban professional middle class increasingly identify with the West and the international urban lifestyle, they view bribery and corruption as increasingly backward.

The third proxy, ecology and environmentalism, is an issue that has become increasingly politicized. Environmental degradation and destruction, particularly in major cities, have become symbols of the abuse of state power and lack of consideration for the law as well as citizens’ rights (Aron 2012: 26). These movements can also be seen as related to the increasing interest in urbanism among the professional middle class of the major cities. Urbanism—or the improvement in urban living conditions, with Western European cities as a model—has been manifested in environmental concerns, such as the growing interest in parks development in Moscow and bicycling in St. Petersburg.

State Efficacy

The avenues of service delivery addressed here are pensions, education, health care, and housing, all of which are fully or partially administered by the state. Of these, pensions have long been the most controversial but are less likely to be a concern to members of the urban professional middle class, who generally skew somewhat younger, are more likely to exhibit long-term savings behavior, and are more likely to have a higher income. Education, on the other hand, is likely to be a concern of the middle class, as these individuals value education and have pursued advanced degrees. Corruption is widespread at the university level. Partly as a result, 63 percent of the urban professional middle class is interested in sending their children abroad for school, and 35 percent express the desire for their children to permanently emigrate (Gudkov, Dubin, and Zorkaia 2008: 50). State health care is rife with shortcomings. Services are free or highly subsidized but are of low quality; private treatment is prohibitively expensive, and a significant market for bribery and ample opportunities for corruption exist. The state also continues to be deeply involved in the administration of housing through the Housing Services (ZhKU) and Housing and Public Utilities (ZhKKh) divisions, which attend to issues such as building maintenance and setting utility rates. Post-Soviet housing privatization made 85 percent of the population homeowners, expanding the middle class (Attwood 2012: 904). Yet housing and utilities have become a controversial issue, as the privatization process has underscored inequalities and tax issues, the rising cost of state-regulated utilities has spawned demonstrations, neglect has led to the degradation of housing stock, and tremendous potential profits have led to monumental corruption (Attwood 2012: 908). For the upwardly mobile urban professionals in question, housing is likely to be a sensitive concern; as their position improves, they are likely to seek better housing, which is in short supply in the major cities.

Beyond service delivery, the state must be effective in keeping its people safe, which is here measured in concerns about the army and terrorism. The military has significantly deteriorated in the last decades, suffering from outdated technology and poorly implemented funding. Major issues with the military, including concern regarding the mandatory service system, brutal hazing, and other abuses, have been well publicized since 1989 by one of the oldest and best-organized civil society groups, the Union of the Committees of Soldiers' Mothers of Russia. Similarly, terrorism poses a serious problem to the country and is not fully contained by the state. Relevant to this study, three major attacks occurred in and around Moscow between 2008 and 2011: the derailment of the Nevsky Express train between Moscow and St. Petersburg in November 2009, the Moscow metro suicide bombings in March 2010, and the Domodedovo airport bombing in January 2011.

Regarding all state efficacy concerns, with the exception of terrorism, one might expect the emergence of civil society groups to advocate for citizens’ rights and interests and encourage the state to reform these sectors. This has occurred in a limited way, as in the case of military and environmental activism, but broadly speaking, civil society remains weak in Russia. Citizens rarely feel empowered to form or join civil society organizations. With few avenues to express their dissatisfaction and frustrations increasing, citizens are more likely to resort to more extreme ways of communicating their dissatisfaction, which can give rise to protests like the 2005 pension benefits protests.

While members of the urban professional middle class can financially insulate themselves from mandatory military service and are not yet old enough for pensions, they cannot escape the systemic problems of the education, health, and housing sectors. Though they may be able to operate independently of the state in other aspects of life—the culture they consume, for example, or the private-sector jobs they hold—in these three respects, the state and its sub-par, often corrupt services are inescapable. It is thus likely that education, health care, and housing will be of rising concern among the urban professional middle class.

Findings: A Constellation of Problems

Issues that became increasingly important in the lead-up to the December 2011 protests include economic, democratic, and state efficacy concerns (Table 2). The problems that show the greatest increase in importance from March 2008 to March 2012 are (1) the standard of living of the population, (2) corruption and red tape, (3) the situation in the housing and utilities sector, (4) the situation in the health care sector, (5) the situation in the education sector, and (6) the influence of oligarchs on the economic and political life of the country.

Table 2. Issues of Increasing Overall Importance to Middle-Class Groups in Russia

First, these results indicate that middle-class groups are increasingly concerned for their quality of life. Their most important issue in general was the standard of living, an economic concern. Moreover, the phrasing of this survey option as “the standard of living of the population” indicates that it is a sociotropic issue for society at large, rather than a personal concern. Increasing worry over the state of the housing, health, and education sectors refers back to the standard of living.

Given that the standard of living has risen over the last decade in Russia, it might be possible that this frustration is the result of higher expectations. As the urban middle class has accumulated wealth, it has increasingly been exposed to the Western European and American lifestyle via travel abroad and foreign media. Young urban professionals seek membership in the Western, urban elite culture with which they identify, as exemplified by the general post-Soviet predilection for conspicuous consumption and by the current mania for iPhones and iPads. Increasingly in Moscow and St. Petersburg, the young professional middle class has isolated itself from the so-called average Russian, patronizing their own restaurants, coffee shops, and bars, many of which are London-, Brooklyn-, or Paris-themed. It is common to hear successful young people in Moscow talk longingly about moving abroad so that they can finally live in a normal country where everything works as it should. These individuals’ aspirational obsession with the West and ability to insulate themselves from the dominant culture may have aggravated these concerns about quality of life, in that their expectations and ideals are consistently disappointed.

Additionally, as urban professionals are more successful, they are likely to expect that their greater earnings will increase their quality of life. Certainly, a higher income does improve quality of life, but when services are state-administered, as with education and health care, having more money does not necessarily mean access to better quality. For example, all institutions of higher education in Russia are public and thus subject to the myriad problems that any state agency faces—corruption, mismanagement, political manipulation, and so on. It is not possible to opt out of this system without the considerable financial wherewithal and aptitude to go abroad for university. For an upper-middle-class family, having more money might result in higher expectations but will not necessarily result in better services. The obvious exception is corruption, but paying bribes for state services might be ethically problematic for this group, which is increasingly frustrated by corruption.

Indeed, corruption is another connection between these issues. The housing, health, and education sectors have all been impacted by corruption, and corruption itself was the second-most important concern for this group. With attention from Medvedev and Putin, corruption became a national issue of high visibility, and it is possible that people then began to see it more frequently and view it more critically in their daily lives. Greater concern for the role of oligarchs suggests that worries about corruption are not limited to the ways in which corruption impacts quotidian life but also relate to how it intersects with the higher echelons of business and government.

Finally, these results imply that if there was a social contract between Putin and the middle class, deep fractures in it were already appearing before the outbreak of the electoral cycle protests, particularly in Moscow and St. Petersburg. If the social contract guaranteed improved living standards, then these results indicate that those for whom living standards were most improved—the middle class—felt that this issue was not only unresolved, but increasingly problematic. Likewise, the social contract might have guaranteed a certain standard of living, but when major services administered by the government are of poor or decreasing quality and access is no longer available to a good education, suitable housing, or reliable health care, it might be difficult for the populace to see how the government is upholding its end of the contract. The social contract might have guaranteed that the state would stay out of individuals’ lives as long as they stayed out of politics, but the increasing penetration of corruption into public services, as well as personal and professional life, might be easy to view as government intrusion with little benefit.

Findings: Economic Issues

For respondents with higher education, respondents working in the specialized private sector, respondents earning over 50,000 rubles per month, and respondents able to purchase moderately priced or expensive durables, the only economic issue of increasing concern was the standard of living of the population. All economic concerns are represented in Figure 2, using specialized private-sector employees, businessmen, and entrepreneurs as a representative sample.