The Value Orientations and Conceptions of the Middle Class Concerning the Desired Vector of the Country's Development

Abstract

Based on materials of national surveys conducted by the Institute of Sociology, Russian Academy of Sciences, in 2013–14, the article analyzes the norms and values of the middle class of Russia, its ideas concerning the desired vector of the country's development. It shows that the values that representatives of the middle class are guided by in everyday life are of a modernized, activist character, which distinguishes them from other groups in the population. Political values and attitudes toward the country's future development basically do not differentiate the middle class from the rest of Russians. Among the representatives of the middle class (and among the rest of Russians) there is a consensus that it is not useful to copy the Western model of development and that a “special path” is necessary for the country. This is defined both by the characteristics of their norms and values and by their attitudes toward private property and the supremacy of law.

Notes

English translation © 2015 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC, from the Russian text © 2015 “Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniia.” “Tsennostnye orientatsii i predstavleniia srednego klassa o zhelaemom vektore razvitiia strany,” Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniia, 2015, no. 1, pp. 55–63.

Svetlana Vladimirovna Mareeva is a candidate of sociological sciences, senior science associate at the Institute of Sociology, Russian Academy of Sciences, and associate professor at the Higher School of Economics National Research University.

Translated by Kim Braithwaite. Translation reprinted from Sociological Research, vol. 54, no. 5. doi: 10.1080/10611428.2016.1257893.

^1. When we speak of modern societies (in contrast to traditional societies), we mean the condition to which a society rises in its process of modernization. At the same time, modernization is viewed as a process that takes place in various forms, considering the characteristics of national cultures and the historical experience of nations. The state of modernity is achieved by societies as a result of not only economic, cultural, and political modernization but also social and sociocultural modernization. Sociocultural modernization involves the formation of new normative value systems and purposes, new patterns of behavior, and a rational type of thinking.