Request for Change: An Attempt at a Political-Psychological Interpretation

The article presents reflections on the demand for change and the ongoing scholarly debate about its very existence in the contemporary Russian society. The author raises a number of topics that are significant for understanding the changes and considers them from the standpoint of a political psychologist. In partucular, the need to “decipher” the desire for change is noted, the ambiguity of the attitude towards stability is shown, the difficulty of determining the situation in society as a crisis or calm, the peculiarities of splits in Russian society are analysed. The key issue in the study of the demand for change is the question of self-regulation of the social and political system in the conditions when the needs for change and the need for stability in society counterbalance each other.

At the moment, when the situation is extremely uncertain, and new challenges and threats appear all the time, it is difficult to count on automatic adaptation to changes. So far, there is no answer to the question What kind of society we would like to have: the one with the dominating demand for change, or the one with citizens striving to maintain stability. This is the very image of the future, that should be built first in order to enable then search for relevant control mechanisms. If this desired model is not set, but simply attitudes towards change or stability are measured, it will make impossible to correctly interpret the results of the polls.

demand for change, stability, conservative ideology, liberal ideology

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