Opposition potential of Russians' civil participation: results of the cluster analysis

The basic research question of the undertaken empirical analysis is the question of the relationship between loyalism and oppositionism, activeness and passivity in the process of forming strategies for civic participation of Russians. Within the framework of the theoretical review that precedes the applied analysis, the authors systematize a significant layer of special studies on the concept, essence, factors of formation and typology of strategies for civic participation. On this basis, the author's method of empirical research of Russian civic activism is proposed. The basic method for collecting factual data is the All-Russian Mass Survey of Russians, represented by territory of residence, gender and age of respondents (N = 1600 people). The clustering method (K-means, SPSS Statistics 26.0) of the survey database identified 12 types of civic participation of Russians. Two indicators for the typology were used: the intensity of civic participation and the modality of the attitude towards the current government. Significant results of the study are the identification of the proportion of representatives of each cluster and the establishment of the relationship between belonging to the type of civic participation and the value and socio-demographic characteristics of Russians. It has been established that the oppositional attitude of Russians' civic attitudes is associated with their pragmatic guidelines, striving for liberal values, high readiness to participate in political and civic actions in online and offline formats, perception of civic activity as a platform free from state participation. The study shows the absolute dominance of a detached neutral position with a relatively insignificant spread of active loyalist and critical positions in the society of the Russian Federation. On the one hand, this indicates the absence of a high potential for protest activity in Russian society. On the other hand, a rather small share of active loyalists in Russian society can limit public consolidation around the official course of the current government. As a research perspective, the author substantiates the need for cybermetric measurement (using big data tools) to support the Russian user audience of external and internal protest-oriented disintegrating information flows, and the degree of approval of constructive consolidating flows aimed at the formation of loyalist sentiments in society, as well as dynamic and discursive characteristics. these information flows.

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