We open this issue of the Russian Social Science Review with a roundtable on the future of Russian society. The wide-ranging discussion features some familiar names and touches on topics regularly covered in this journal’s thematic issues: authoritarian rule, regime legitimacy, political apathy, institutional weakness, economic stagnation, brain drain, demographic decline, social stability, traditional values, and religious identity. What are the most likely scenarios for the decade ahead in Russia? The roundtable participants suggest some possible trajectories, including, at the extremes, a Venezuelan scenario and a South Korean–style miracle. Or will Russia—can Russia—continue to muddle through indefinitely?
Next, analyst Kirill Rogov undertakes a review of crisis events in the 2010s and trends in public opinion data to account for the fact that his own expectation that Russia would embark on a period of institutionalization did not come to pass. Sociologist G.I. Kozyrev surveys the stressors in Russian society and the factors and actions that have kept the potential for instability in check. Lev Gudkov, director of the Levada Center, offers a blunt assessment of those critics who, in his view, resist a deep understanding Russian society and the ability of an increasingly authoritarian system to endure, while failing to acknowledge their own alienation from the essence of democratic politics and the on-the-ground work of building civil society.
Might a reformer emerge from the establishment to lead Russia on a tiger’s path? In the spring of 2017 President Vladimir Putin charged some high-ranking officials and advisers with the task of developing proposals for pulling Russia out of its slow-growth doldrums. Our final selection describes what happened. Two of the plans that came in were ambitious. One (advanced by former finance minister Aleksei Kudrin) emphasized investment in human capital and reform of the institutions of law and governance; the other (from the Stolypin Club, and favored by the authors of our article) called for a loosening of monetary policy and other measures aimed at spurring business investment. The policy recommendations submitted by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev were more incremental, although they were not easy. By and large they described the steps that would in fact be taken—not to boost growth, but to fortify state finances through tax increases and a tightening of the pension system.
As this issue was being prepared for press, President Putin announced a plan to reorganize the Russian government. Is this a rather elaborate ploy to extend his own power, as many have suggested? Or might it instead—or also—be a way to shake things up and open new possibilities for initiative and innovation? We will continue to track these themes in future issues.
—P.A.K.