Threats of self-sufficiency in the context of Russian social health trends

About the author:

Mikhail V. Morev, Cand. Sci. (Econ.), Leading Researcher, Head of the Laboratory for Study of Social Processes and Public Administration Efficiency, Vologda Research Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences; eLibrary AuthorID, ORCID, ResearcherID, ScopusID, 379post@mail.ru

Abstract:

The article considers social health in the socio-political context, which refers to the nature of social perception and social well-being of the population, emerging in the process of transformation of the key issues of internal and external political agenda. The authors’ attention is focused on the trend of Russia strengthening its self-sufficiency observed in the country since 2014. The hypothesis of the study involved that the roots of self-sufficiency go to the state of social atomism, which characterized Russian society in the mid-2000s — early 2010s. As a result, the phenomenon of Russian self-sufficiency acquires a number of extremely dangerous features that we should clearly be aware of, considering self-sufficient Russians as the main socio-demographic category on which the future of our country will depend.

The main information source was the monitoring of public opinion conducted by the Federal State Budgetary Institution of Science “Vologda Research Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences” (FSBIS VolRC RAS) in the Vologda Region since 1996 at intervals of 1 every 2 months. The authors polled 1,500 respondents 18 years of age and older in Vologda and Cherepovets, in Babaevsky, Veliky Ustyug, Vozhegodsky, Gryazovetsky, Kirillovsky, Nikolsky, Tarnogsky, Sheksninsky districts. The representativeness of the sample is ensured by the following conditions: the proportions between urban and rural population; the proportions between the inhabitants of settlements of different types (rural settlements, small and medium-sized cities); sex and age structure of the adult population of the region. The survey took place at the respondents’ residences. Sampling error does not exceed 3%.

According to a similar methodology, in June 2018, a survey was conducted within the framework of RFBR grant no 18-013-01077 “Development of the methodological approach to assessing the social health of a transforming society”.

In addition, the article relies largely on the results of the sociological research conducted by the Federal Research Sociological Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences (FRSC RAS) as well as the European Social Survey and the international study Edelman Trust Barometr of the American company Edelman.

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