The Psychological Influence of Russian Society on Public policy

Abstract

The societal role in the public policy presupposes it’s recognition as an independent actor of political decision-making. But tackling the society rarely pays attention to its’ psychological state in each moment of the time. The paper discusses the results of the study that describes the current psychological state of Russian society and its’ capability to influence public policy. The author distinguishes two main trends. The first trend facilitates the societal role in public policy, i.e.: the growing level of society’s self-consciousness, high level of activism demand, the change of political «optics», in particular the growth of cognitive complexity and precision of political representations. The second trend is opposite to the first as during last two years Russian society was affected by the growth of negative emotional background, raise of political indifference, lack of political interest that are not less dangerous to stability of the state than riots, aggressiveness, protests. This trend shows the lack of readiness to mobilization that is necessary in the face of pandemic or military risks. But positive changes in psychological state of society concern the core of this phenomenon as the negative affects it’s periphery. It permits us to evaluate the changes in psychological state of Russian society as rather positive, though not stable ones.