State–society relations in contemporary Russia: new forms of political and social contention

Abstract

Much existing analysis of Russian state-society relations focuses on public, active forms of contention such as the "opposition" and protest movements. There is need for a more holistic perspective which adds study of a range of overt, "co-opted", and hidden forms of interaction to this focus on public contention. A theoretical and empirical basis for understanding state-society relations in today's Russia involves broadening the concept of "contentious politics" to include models of "consentful" as well as "dissentful" contention. A diffused model of contentious politics can situate claim-making along the axes of consentful and dissentful motivations, and compliant and contentious behaviours.Keywords: Russia; contentious politics; protest; opposition; civil society Prior to the contested 2011-2012 elections in Russia, many commentators held the view that Russian society did not pose an existential threat to the country's political status quo (Gel'man 2013, 6). While sporadic protests had occurred before 2011, they had been largely confined to specific geographic areas and tended to focus on relatively narrow issues (Evans 2012; Koesel and Bunce 2012, 412). Indeed it is no exaggeration to say that the vibrant street protests after the elections caught most analysts by surprise (Volkov 2012, 55). Since then, there has been a compensatory focus on new forms of opposition and public protest, evidence of instability within the Putin regime and a (partial) movement away from the perception of the Russian state as an efficiently operating presidential vertikal (e.g. Monaghan 2012; Greene 2013; Judah 2013).Much of the existing analysis, however, continues to focus on public, active forms of contention such as the "opposition" and social, issue-based movements that mobilise public protest (e.g. Koesel and Bunce 2012;Robertson 2013;White 2013;Ross 2015). These accounts provide a vitally important perspective on the interactions between state and society in contemporary Russia. However, as Evans (2012, 234) notes, "We should not expect that the study of groups in Russia that carry out public protests against the decisions of those in authority can give us a comprehensive understanding of Russian civil society". Chebankova (2015, 244) Vol. 31, No. 3, 261-273, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/21599165.2015 Downloaded by [University of Glasgow] at 09:34 26 August 2015 arguing that researchers "tend to confine their analysis to the visible side of mobilisation, thus ignoring its latent dimensions". This special issue therefore joins a growing body of works that seek to switch the analytical lens more fully from state-centric analyses focusing on the mechanics of the Putinite presidential system towards the emergent Russian politics "from below". Such analyses (e.g. Beznosova and Sundstrom 2009; Chebankova 2009; Robertson 2010; Gladarev and Lonkila 2013) make several common arguments: (a) there has long been greater political contention in post-Soviet Russia than many acknowledge; (b) such contention is often more marked at loc...

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