Local Activism and the Prospects for Civil Society in Moscow

Abstract

Three geographers with extensive knowledge of the development of local activism in Russia seek to identify types of civic engagement present at the local level in Moscow. They focus on the role of neighborhood-based housing movements in the creation of a civil society and as a link between social activity and the implementation of new housing property rights. They then examine the structure and distribution of a wider range of urban social movements and survey four focus groups in an effort to measure the social activity of Muscovites and the emergence of new, residentially based spaces of citizenship in Moscow. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: L30, P30, R21. 4 figures, 3 tables, 37 references.