ABSTRACT
THE PUZZLE THAT WE ADDRESS IN THIS ESSAY IS THE EXTREME unevenness in the way the Russian public protests against authoritarianism and demands political reforms. Between 2000 and 2013 there were numerous local protests demanding specific actions by municipal or regional officials (for example, to prevent local factory bankruptcy, to stop construction, and to expel migrants). There were also protests demanding better public goods and services such as education, healthcare, and transport, to stop welfare reforms, or against the reorganisation of scientific funding. However, when it comes to protests concerning demands for political reforms such as free and fair elections, the protection of human rights, and for institutionalised democracy, most of the activity was limited toMoscow and other very large cities (Robinson 2013). Elsewhere, the scope of pro-democracy action remained much more limited. A 2012 opinion poll by the Levada Centre has shown that only around 20% of Russians (mostly residents of the largest cities) support the idea of in-depth political reforms, leaving the remaining 80% either against democratic reforms or indifferent to the idea. Furthermore, based on demographic covariates, Levada Centre analysts forecast that this 2080 breakdown on the issue is set to persist for the foreseeable future.1 In this study we provide a theoretical explanation to account for the fact that pro-
democracy protests, support for political and institutional reforms, and electoral support for opposition parties are not spreading in modern-day Russia, and remain limited to specific social groups and large cities. The explanation, we argue, lies in citizens’ concerns over the highly uncertain redistributive consequences of political reforms. Our theoretical framework links high levels of economic inequality with difficulties of democratic consolidation and society’s inability to reach a consensus on how to address the lingering institutional inefficiency.2
