Economic issues may have played a role in the electoral cycle protests, as members of the middle class may have experienced the crisis differently from working-class Russians. Using survey data gathered in 2009, Chaisty and Whitefield found that although support for the regime decreased among individuals who were personally negatively affected by the crisis, there is no evidence that the crisis politicized the middle class more than the working class (2012: 196). This analysis does not take into account significant differences in the longer-term impact of the financial crisis on the middle class as compared to the working class in ways that might affect regime support. The middle class is expected to engage in long-term savings and investment behavior, making it more connected to global financial markets and therefore vulnerable to shocks. Furthermore, as members of the urban middle class exhibited more sophisticated and differentiated ways of managing their money, they were more likely to have been entangled in the global financial crisis and might be expected to have reported increased concerns about the economy at a later point in the crisis. While a factory worker might have suffered wage arrears and unemployment during the worst of the crisis, as Russia’s economy got back on track fairly quickly, these issues would also have been resolved. Comparatively, an entrepreneur with investments in foreign markets would be less likely to suffer from wage arrears or the closing of factories but would be more likely to experience longer-term effects as the global financial markets’ faltering recovery continued to impact investments and international business. For example, FDI in Russia dropped from US$75 billion in 2008 to US$36.5 billion in 2009, and had only recovered to US$52.9 billion by 2011 (World Bank n.d.). While recovery in FDI has been steady following the crisis, by 2011, it had only just reached levels attained in 2007. The slow recovery in FDI would be more likely to impact private-sector employees with higher education and businessmen affiliated with international firms than state-sector employees of a similar socioeconomic position. Thus, looking at the changing attitudes of the middle class toward the economy in the several years following the crisis might reveal insights not available from studies conducted in the months immediately following.

Finally, the notion that Russians as a whole did not know whom to blame for the crisis does not mean that the educated, urban middle class did not hold the government responsible. Once the crisis had penetrated Russia, the government’s rhetoric of blame shifting and denial may have been seen by this group as deceitful, especially when viewed in the broader context of the abuses of a paternalistic state (Aron 2012: 27). The promised modernization program to speed recovery may have particularly appealed to the middle class, who may have been disappointed when no such program was realized.

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.

Concern for the standard of living significantly increased between December 2011 and March 2012, roughly corresponding to the period of the electoral cycle. Indeed, this effect was particularly strong in Moscow and St. Petersburg; in December 2011, 51 percent of people selected the standard of living as a problem, and by March 2012, 71 percent felt it was an issue.

Also notable is concern for the economic crisis. This option was first available in the January 2009 round of the survey, at which time it was of significantly higher interest to respondents from middle-class groups as compared to the general public. While 23 percent of the general public felt the economic crisis was a problem, 32 percent of residents in Moscow and St. Petersburg and 30 percent of respondents with higher purchasing power selected it as a problem in January 2009. While these figures seem low considering the scope of the crisis, they demonstrate that different groups perceived this event differently.

Findings: Democratic Issues

All groups, including the general population, felt that corruption and red tape and the influence of oligarchs on the economic and political life of the country were of increasing concern (Figure 3).

For all groups, concern for corruption was significant and increasing. Middle-class groups were more likely than the general population to select corruption as a problem. It was of greatest concern to residents of Moscow and St. Petersburg and specialized private-sector employees. Though corruption was a highly rated problem on all surveys, it became a much greater concern in December 2011. Before December 2011, concern for corruption was high but relatively constant, with around half of all respondents selecting it as a problem (Figure 4).

The spike in concern for corruption in December 2011 was not presaged by a rising interest in the issue. Instead, concern for corruption first manifested between the March 2008 and January 2009 rounds of the survey. The May 2008 announcement of Medvedev’s anti-corruption campaign and the programs initiated to mitigate corruption throughout the year are likely responsible for the rise in interest. The announcement of the anti-corruption campaign increased concern over corruption to a similar degree that the Duma elections did; both events led to an increase of approximately 15 percentage points across all groups.

Democracy and human rights was the lowest rated concern not only among all democratic issues, but among all survey issues as a whole. Interest in democracy and human rights consistently decreased over the period of the survey for both middle-class groups and the population in general. Despite a peak in March 2008, when approximately 25 percent of respondents from middle-class groups and 19 percent of the general population were concerned about democracy and human rights, only 7 to 11 percent of people expressed concern with this issue by November 2011.

For residents of Moscow and St. Petersburg, however, the story is slightly different. Concern about democracy and human rights appears to be linked to the electoral cycle protests. For these respondents, concerns about democracy and human rights reached a low point of 8 percent in April 2011 but then increased to 15 percent by June 2011, reaching a high point of 29 percent in December 2011, following the fraudulent Duma elections (Figure 5).

This result suggests that although democracy and human rights was not an issue of great importance for the general population, there was increasing demand in the capital cities for democracy.

It also indicates that the prioritization of democracy and human rights is subject to current events. Though residents of the capital might not view their daily lives in the context of this framework, they are nonetheless able to use it to understand major events like elections. It would thus seem that the lack of interest in democracy and human rights is not based on a misunderstanding of or unfamiliarity with the terms, but perhaps on the feeling that these concepts are not applicable to every situation or problem with the state.

Despite the surge in interest in democracy and human rights in late 2011, by March 2012, after Putin’s victory in the presidential election, only 8 percent of respondents in Moscow and St. Petersburg selected this issue as one of importance. This finding implies that concern for democracy and human rights might be linked to a sense of personal political efficacy. Following the Duma elections, protestors called for the invalidation of the election results and sought to prevent Putin’s reelection in March. Both activities might have led to an increase in concern for democracy, but neither aim was successfully achieved. Putin’s reelection was perceived as a failure and deep disappointment for the protest movement. The failure to create democratic change appears to have been translated into apathy, rather than ongoing concern. If we feel, however, that the importance of democracy and human rights is contingent on a relevant event, this drop-off in interest might be the result of the conclusion of the federal electoral cycle. In other words, if elections lead to an increased interest in democracy, we might expect interest in democracy to decline when significant elections are far off. We might expect a similar increase in interest in democracy and human rights around subsequent major elections.

Concern about the influence of oligarchs is slightly higher for the middle-class groups than for the general population and significantly higher for residents of Moscow and St. Petersburg. All groups became more concerned about this issue in the November 2011 survey, with concern increasing by 6 to 14 percentage points between June 2011 and November 2011, while concern among the general population in this period increased only 4 percentage points, from 19 to 23 percent. Concern was again strongest in Moscow and St. Petersburg, where it increased from 24 to 38 percent between June and November 2011. This increase may have been a response to the announcement that Putin would run for president rather than Medvedev, which implied at least backroom dealing, if not the influence of oligarchs. It also coincided with oligarch Mikhail Prokhorov’s public announcement in September 2011 that he would depart from the Pravoe Delo political party, a satellite party of power in which he had been a prominent figure. These two episodes likely highlighted the role of informal power in Russia’s political system.

Findings: State Efficacy

For issues related to state efficacy, results were again roughly the same across middle-class groups, with slight variations in responses from residents of Moscow and St. Petersburg, and across the general population. All middle-class groups felt that the situation in the sphere of housing and utility services, the situation in the health sector, and the situation in the education sector were of increasing concern (Figure 6).

The prominence of the housing, health, and education sectors may be linked with a greater concern for the provision or poor quality of state services. Alternately, it could reflect a concern with the costs or perceived value of these services if the quality were low or decreasing while the cost was high or increasing; this explanation might best apply to housing and utilities. By far the biggest issue in state efficacy—as well as one of the most significant in the survey as a whole—was the situation with housing and utilities. Beginning in January 2011, the concern of all groups and the general population over housing and utilities greatly increased, growing from an issue for about 25 percent of people in September 2010 to an issue for about 50 percent of people in January 2011. It thereafter remained approximately constant.

Concern for the health care sector also increased at a similar rate across middle-class groups and the general population over the period in question. Moreover, health care was a concern for a nearly identical share of respondents from middle-class groups with higher education, private-sector professionals, those earning 50,000 or more rubles per month, and the general population. Respondents from Moscow and St. Petersburg assessed health care much more negatively than did other groups beginning in April 2011. At that time, all groups increased their negative evaluations of the health care sector, but the increase was greatest for residents of the capital cities, for whom concern about health care increased by 22 percentage points to 50 percent.

Education exhibited the weakest increase of the three, increasing by around 10 percentage points for all groups between January 2009 and March 2012. Of all middle-class groups and the general population, education was of most concern to respondents with higher education and private-sector professionals with higher education, which is in line with expectations. Of all groups, respondents from Moscow and St. Petersburg found education to be of least concern.

Concerns in the Capitals

Respondents from Moscow and St. Petersburg were generally more critical than members of other middle-class groups. A larger percentage of respondents from the capitals tended to identify an issue as a problem for the country, and they were frequently the most negative of the middle-class groups. For example, concern for the standard of living of the population significantly increased for all groups, including the general population (Figure 7). Although this issue was of concern to a large segment of respondents, it was typically of higher concern to residents of Moscow and St. Petersburg.

The same is true of responses to the issue of corruption. This suggests that residents of the major cities are more likely than members of the middle class to identify problems for the country and to be critical of the state.

Residents of Moscow and St. Petersburg also showed more precipitous increases in concern for several issues over the course of 2011. An example of this is the 20 percentage point increase in concern for the standard of living in April 2011. This trend suggests that residents of Moscow and St. Petersburg might be more reactive to news or current events and may thus be better informed than others. Alternatively, they may be more networked and more willing to speak to others about their concerns, which could amplify an increase spurred by a news event.

The experience of living in a major metropolitan capital has a greater impact on one’s political views and perception of the state than do indicators of middle-class membership like higher education or higher income. It is therefore possible that residents of major cities might one day assume the responsibilities of constraining government power and advocating for political rights, which is in some theories the purview of a strong middle class. Such a role would make use of the outsize political weight and social capital carried by residents of the capitals, particularly those in Moscow.

Conclusions

During the period in question, the following problems concerned the Russian middle class: standard of living, corruption, housing, health care, education, and the influence of oligarchs. There are two explanations for rising concern for these issues between 2008 and 2012. First, these issues might relate to an overall failure to meet middle-class expectations of a higher quality of life. Second, they might pertain to rising frustration with the interference of corruption in daily life and the state’s inability or unwillingness to mitigate corruption. Both explanations suggest that the theorized social contract between the middle class and the state was sundered before the outbreak of protests following the fraudulent Duma elections on December 4, 2011.

Respondents from Moscow and St. Petersburg felt more strongly about problems in Russia. They were also more reactive than other groups, repeatedly displaying a steep increase in concern for a problem over the previous survey round. Particularly, they were more concerned than other group with the standard of living and corruption. Furthermore, though most survey respondents did not see democracy and human rights as a problem, respondents from Moscow and St. Petersburg displayed increased interest in this issue around the time of the election protests. This suggests that they use these ideas as a framework to understand events in instances where they might directly impact the state, but not as a general mode of relating to the state.

In interviews conducted by the author, the organizers of the 2011–2012 protests repeatedly expressed anger, shame, and a sense of insult that although Russia is formally a democracy, those who truly hold the power decide the outcome of the parliamentary and presidential elections behind the scenes. Their votes, the fraud revealed, count for nothing. The idea that their votes should all be counted equally, and that they as a group should have some political power, was a motivating idea for the protestors. The greater landscape of pervasive and ever-more troubling inequality helps to explain why that political concern became relevant when it did, and why it brought so many people out into the streets to advocate for their democratic rights.

Works Cited

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Endnotes

[1] Surveys also included five additional answers representing social problems: alcoholism and drug abuse, crime, demographic crisis (births and deaths), state of morality and ethics, and youth development. These responses are excluded from the following analysis, because they encompass issues over which the government has no specific control. While the state has attempted to address all of these issues in some respect, from restricting access to alcohol to offering incentives for having larger families, these problems cannot purely be attributed to the state. Some of these problems may also reflect the continuing challenges of the post-Soviet transition; for example, concern over the state of morality and ethics in society has been linked to the end of the state’s authority over moral issues (Gorshkov 2011–2012: 85).

[2] For the purposes of this study, responses were classed in the state efficacy category only if the state has direct control over the problem in question. In the economic category, the greater systemic issue of the global financial crisis underpins the responses. While unemployment and inflation clearly can be helped or hindered by government policies, the increase in both was the result of the crisis. Likewise, the late payment of salaries may be attributed to the management or owners of firms but in a broader sense is only an issue because of the crisis.

[3] http://data.worldbank.org/country/russian-federation

[4] Respondents selecting the most negative option for the questions, “In your opinion, the current state of the Russian economy [is] good, fair or poor?” “Do you think the state of the Russian economy over the past year has improved, worsened or did not change?” “Do you think that in the next year the Russian economy will [be] better, worse or unchanged?” (see http://fom.ru/indikatory.html#?vt=37,47,128,161,164,185,113&s=125,140,121,117,128)

[5] The FOM protest sentiment index is based on responses to five questions: “In the last month did you notice or not notice dissatisfaction, or the willingness of people to participate in protests?”; “Do you think that in the last month, discontent or people's willingness to participate in protests has been growing or declining?”; What percentage of Russians do you think are now discontent, or willing to participate in protests?”; “Do you personally feel or not feel resentment, or the willingness to participate in protests?”; and “If next Sunday, where you live, there are rallies, demonstrations and protests, would you take part in them or not?”

[6] Levada Center, “Do you think it can be said that Russia is a democratic society?,” (Kak Vyi dumaete, mozhno li skazat’, shto v Rossii seichas <>?)October 2010 (accessed at http://www.levada.ru/archive/gosudarstvo-i-obshchestvo/rossiya-i-demokratiya/kak-vy-dumaete-mozhno-li-skazat-chto-v-rossi).

[7] Anti-corruption campaigns themselves can have negative effects on corruption perceptions as well as on attitudes toward the state. Coulloudon suggests that when regimes are characterized by institutionalized corruption, anti-corruption campaigns can simply raise awareness of the problem, essentially demonstrating the state’s inability to address the problem and contributing to impressions of state weakness (2002: 188).

[8] See Sharafutdinova (2010: 156) on factors affecting corruption perception in hybrid regimes.

[9] Social problems (alcoholism and drug abuse, crime, youth development, morality and ethics, and demographic crisis) were generally of high concern to middle-class groups as well as the general population, but concern over such issues exhibited little change over the time period in question and was not considered in this study.