Generations as a Factor in Russian Civic Engagement

This article draws upon the results of a representative survey to study civic engagement of Russians belonging to different generations. Special emphasis is paid to the younger generation as the most active and dynamic social and age group. The role of different generations in driving social and political change is especially relevant for Russian society, since over the past few decades, it has experienced dramatic fluctuations of social and political attitudes, including the inversion of the people’s value sets, rises and falls in civic engagement, and changes in the political agenda. The theoretical and methodological basis of the research comprises a set of arguments in favor of the assumption that civic engagement may have different features depending on the generation. In particular, wehighlight that in societies that experience dramatic changes, different generations tend to be separated by a deep gap when it comes to motivation and assessment of the possibilities and future prospects of civic participation. Our findings show that young Russians, whose first social adjustment took place in a post-Soviet environment, first and foremost view civic engagement as a means of self-expression and self-fulfillment, which reflects the entire range of the younger generation’s interests. In turn, civic engagement among seniors mostly takes institutionalized and conventional forms: more often than not, as the result of adapting to the existing social and political environment. We conclude that in modern Russian society, civic engagement is more an ambivalent rather than topical democratic phenomenon, and it is in this capacity that we observe it in every generation.